05 XII 2001 - 22:58 - orbis1

Yes. School is drawing to a close and I cannot wait for it to end and right now the world is dissolving in a wash of rain and things could not be better. I love weather like this (sigh, Bill doesn't, I guess) I'll continue to feel this way as long as I haven't started my homework, which means that I'll probably get around to starting my homework at midnight or so (not to worry, though, it's mostly reading, and as a certified music dork [yes yes, I will finally own up to it because it is so. damn. true] it is almost certain that my Western Civ teacher will not call on me tomorrow when we discuss concerto grosso form, more's the pity). Blah.

I had an "optional make-up" math test yesterday; we went over some of the problems today, and already I know that I got a couple of things wrong. I would like to say now that logarithmic equations are not, in and of themselves, bad. It's just the difficulty that I have with them that is bad. And perhaps also annuities and future value and compound interest problems. Those are just bad as well. Oh well, if I fail it, it doesn't count because my lowest test grade for the semester not including the final is thrown out. Yes. Did I make sense? I doubt it.

My Latin teacher today told us that we had no homework in AP class, but that we had better be up to line 519 in book I of the Aeneid by finals time. I can live with that; it's only seventy or so lines, right? I can do seventy lines in a week and a half... I will not panic...

Thanks to borogoves for the link to the art test; my results were as follows.

If I were a work of art, I would be M. C. Escher's Lizards. I am a bizarre juxtaposition of the real and the unreal. Based in the realm of mathematics, my two-dimensional appearance belies a complex and free-willed behaviour which both delights and confuses people.

So Hell Period has begun; the performance of movements 1 and 3 of the Malcolm Arnold oboe quartet took place today at lunch (elicited the comment "That piece is very... complex" from a music teacher but on the other hand also prompted him to say to me, "Hot damn! That was you on a viola part? You're getting good at this!" <j gives lopsided grin>). Tomorrow night (at UHS) is the school's winter concert; I have two quasi-solos on a program which for the chamber orchestra runs: Rossini's overture to The Barber of Seville, an arrangement of Borodin's From the Steppes of Central Asia, a wind arrangement of Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Reed Flutes, a string arrangement by Balakirev of a left-hand Chopin etude, "Hoedown" from Copland's Rodeo, the Sousa march "El Capitan," and movements 1, 2, and 7 of John Rutter's Requiem. Which, by the way, sounds curiously as if Andrew Lloyd Webber might have had a hand in its composition, more's the pity, but I'm not complaining, because the second movement is for all intents and purposes a cello solo. THEN: rehearsal for SFSYO as usual on Saturday but also on on Thursday so that we can play our Peter and the Wolf concert (I'm sorry, "Christmas" concert) on 15 December. You know you want to come. </end music dork rant>

A few notes having been made in Latin class about things I found funny, the time has come to share them with y'all and find out that, no, they're not funny at all. So here they are:

1) [funny only if you know the way in which my Latin teacher usually behaves] "And if you don't like that translation, you can stick it in your pipe and smoke it!"

2) Conversation between A. and the teacher:

"They boarded ships..."
"No."
"They boarded ships..."
<general laughter>

3) Translation of the phrase dux femina facti (and a woman was leader of the deed/undertaking):

"And the leader having been made a woman..."

Wow. Sex-change operations and Aeneas. Who knew?

I love the rain. Just thought I'd say that. Except there are weird holes in the pavement near our school, and so the water doesn't drain from there and it gets all brown and develops this really thick film on its surface. Then that film starts to smell really, really bad. So let's hope more rain comes - I think the newspaper said we're due for quasi-sun, though. Oh well. The newspaper also said that the amount of rain that's fallen in the season to date is about twice the amount of rain that had fallen by last year at this time. Unclear? Yes. So help me God.

I'm occupied with reading BtVS/Angel slash at the moment instead of homework. Which makes sense, because one is so much more interesting than the other. Except I sort of have to do my homework in order to pass these classes. *sigh* Fancy that. Oh, and I downloaded some wallpaper from chivalry is dead. Thank you, dymphna, for providing so many links... well, links to both, actually. Even though you don't read this site and have absolutely no way of knowing that I'm thanking you. (What? You say "use her guestbook?" What a brilliant idea!) God, I need a life, but until I get one (doubtful, both you and I say), it looks as if I'll be stuck reading fanfic, putting off homework, and making music dork comments. So bleah.

And thank you, by the way, to the people who responded to the last entry. It's weird how well my brain is able to sort of cut out the fact that people do care when I get in my moods. Actually, it's not all that weird, because I wouldn't have gotten in that mood if I'd remembered that there are people who care. And I am rambling now. But T. wrote a rebuttal, and A. and B. and b. both wrote messages, and the world was good and j was happy for once. And I promise that I will not refer to myself in the third person for a while to come, and since when was polysyndeton an English thing? I'm using too many "and"s.

My sister is home, and school is ending soon. Yay.

And so I go back to where I started this entry... perhaps now would be a good time to end it.

orbis, orbis m. disk, circle, orb; ring, wheel; circuit; the world.

orbis terrarum: the circle of lands = the world