http://www.mothersagainstnoise.org/

This is one of the most hilarious things I have ever encountered on the internet. Seriously... There is always someone.

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Surprise, Surprise. Overall this has been a great semester, music-wise. I can't even explain all the things I've done and grown from. If only I can just get it together and grow up. Yesterday I just finished my paper on Oliver Messiaen's Quatuor por la fin du Temps. The project was overall very fascinating and I have been wanting to do a project on Messiaen since my freshman year, finally I got there. I wrote the paper with a tripartite perspective of time through apocalypse, eternity, and relativity, yes the General Theory of Relativity. All these subjects could be papers on their own but this was a good starting place, i might just examine one or two perspectives sooner than later. I had a lot of fun with this project, the more musical knowledge I gain the more enjoyable and incredibly fun these papers become. Never had a problem wanting to write them in the first place - its just becoming more and more a pleasure to do. Hopefully this is what grad-school is going to be like, if i ever get there/get in..... Unfortunately there is a downturn to the end of this semester as well. And I will quote radiohead for this one, its like waking up and sucking on a lemon. Somehow, and i really don't know how I pulled a not so wonderful grade in my history class which of course killed my gpa and any thoughts of having this nice wonderful, otherwise, semester come to an end. I thought I nailed the final, and I thought my journals were okay 16 pages total, seriously! Oh what a surprise... I can only blame myself. Between doing too much and of course giving music things all the attention well maybe I deserve it? Hrm. (enter erased dumbass wise crack here). Yeah I feel pretty stupid after probably writing one of the best things I have written so far just because of another stupid class. Good grief, the undergrad has such a vicious cycle. Anyway I thought I had everything in its place this semester, that it was going to turn out good, every time that I think its going to be good oh it usually turns out pretty bad, and this is just another example.

Well now I can look to next semester and improving on my faults... I am going to start reading soon for a few of my classes. I have also decided to re-organize my life, cut out things that are not needed and make time to study things many days a week, like I have never done before. I lack discipline, its terrible, I think I have had my wake up call now - I kind of really want to go to grad school no more f-ups. I guess its realizing that I don't have a big red and blue S on my chest, no your not supermeg get over it be human you can only take so much. I realize this post is turning into a rant, this blog is turning away from its original intent as well...
Researching Quatuor has made me wonder about next research topics. For music seminar we are going to be doing smaller papers instead of big huge ones, which in a way is a relief cause I want to save the big ones for next year and my undergrad thesis. I think I might tackle Machaut and/or the Isorhythm next, that just might be a lot of fun. Then I was thinking about doing something with early opera, how I kind of cringe at the thought, but it will be good for me like spinach... I don't know why I don't like opera, I like some 20th C. opera but thats a given with my tastes. Who knows what will come next, I would love to get back into Monteverdi but I think Ive been on that island for too long. There is always Beethoven class next semester and of course Bach is coming up in music sem. I don't know I kinda have a desire to get away from the big names and learn about the less known composers. Good ol' canon has got me pegged.

And I also want to mention... I've started the 'sound project over break'... I have one piece done and another in the works, tons of ideas on the table. I don't really want to give details because its better to hear - than read about the pieces. I just hooked up some of the old equipment that I haven't gotten to in the lab yet and it is incredible stuff! I love to just dial in sounds and sit there and play my guitar or the synths like a drunken vegetable. Seriously I can get some great soundscapes out of this stuff, its SO exciting!!! I just need to remember to bring my violin bow from the yucky violin (or get a cello bow for better tension) down to the lab when I am working on stuff, it needs some jimmy page/sigur ros inspired bowed guitar.

PS- And the great part is I don't have to worry about becoming stupid during break, I already did somewhere around the middle of the semester! Gah!

Oh well... I am out. How I wish things were different, now I will quote Finding Nemo: Keep Swimming...

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pg. 7 marks sleep.
and the 7 other movements that wern't composed in a prison camp
and 7 is the holy number
the days in the week
the 7 days of creation
the 8th movement of eternity.
or the less than 8 hours of sleep i will get.
Poetry of tired researching. HA!

I am researching Messiaen's Quatuor Pour La Fin du Temps
and listening to Sigur Ros while writing.
I will elaborate more after the first draft is done maybe tuesday maybe thursday when its all done:
Good ol' semester roundup now that it will be over.
ps- and the fear of becoming stupid over break.

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Ohhhhh it is the end of the semester, and a Friday night where I have stared at two books that need to be read (its for history, ancient greece and rome...) and written on by Monday all night. I guess its getting it in my head if I get it done I can do the project I really want to do and live life a little more normally. I should look at grad school sites to get me motivated, you can't get there unless you get through here! (okay doesn't work as well as the yankee phrase) Oh, the life of an undergrad. I can't wait til grad school its probably considerably harder, like the week before-finals week every day. I am tired and burnt writing fragmented, thoughts unclear. I am mostly writing this to mark today as a great day. I finally completed my individual major proposal. 11 drafts a billion meetings talk talk talk adding problems, thinking problems, stress etc and about two weeks later its finally done. Now, I hope it gets approved, with a cherry on top. Okay maybe not the cherry but I do like shirley temples with the cherries in them... SO random. And if it does get approved which is most likely, cause the Dean was down with me, I have an awesome journey left here at UMF. Everything is so certain now. I sat down and planned the next two years here and everything is road mapped by me its what I want this is my major, not something to conform to. I am making the step to show hey I am ready to take on the responsibility of a student who knows where they want to go. Amazing just music and writing (with two more history, one math, and a philosophy course left) courses for the rest of my days, its so focused and I will probably produce some of my best work ever. If there was something I learned from this semester it was 1. be human and 2. I was really unhappy with the idea of conforming and taking classes I didn't want to take (IE the arts component of my music/arts major.. ex-2D (even though it was fun.. it was a big 'wish i was putting my time into something more music-researching class) though I probably would have liked to take another studio art course, or I might audit to take a new media course once we have that here).

Another huge huge huge thing is coming up NEXT SEMESTER. I am TAing next semester for the Electro Acoustic music course! BAH HA HA! and what comes with that is possibly a new performance group at good ol UMF: electro acoustic ensemble. I think it should be called The UMF Puppets With Beats, or The UMF Puppets with Synths and not afraid to use them electronic ensemble, or UMF electro acoustic puppets. Just kidding, though it would be funny... Seriously the UMFEAE (UMF electro acoustic ensemble) or whatever it is called is going to be incredibly cool. More details later on that subject though.

Over break I will have time to do a little of my own composing.. I might tackle the Italia Project that I said I would do all summer. Since I can't work a ton over break I am looking forward to snowboarding almost every day and writing music. ITS LIKE A VACATION! NO WAY! But I want to stay on top of things read for music seminar, and Beethoven read City of Falling Angels for pleasure have fun maybe doing some sort of research who knows, its wide open right now except for my cousin coming up but thats going to be a BLAST. Next semester I am pulling 16 cr. I will be pulling 16 for the next 3 semesters after this spring better start now. So I will be TAing Electro acoustic then for classes I have Beethoven, Music Seminar II, Advanced English Comp, Feature Writing, and US History II. Looks interesting I must say... I am predicting going insane and starting to go grey (though its not in my family... that much). HA! I love it! I am not complaining. I should go to bed I am beat.

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This is quasi-music related, more a social commentary/review. I should write about my progress in the semester, maybe after the concerts this weekend, but right now I am pretty inspired to write something. Okay, shut-up just say what you intended to say... HA! I just got back from seeing Rent, which I have never seen before and yes it was the movie not the on-stage show but nonetheless the impact is quite dramatic and great. Finally a movie/musical that made me think, seriously made me think about life. It seems like a number such as 525,600 is huge, and it happens to be how many minutes we get in a year. How many of these minutes have we utilized, slept, thought, realized, acted really really stupid, laughed, cried, reflected, stared in awe, wanted to be something, or someone for that matter, made decisions, lied, ran, gave up all feeling, felt sad, felt happy, or lived; hopefully every single one of them for the latter. Sure, the song is about seasons of love, but its about life, and it made me realize how lucky I am. I think back over this past year, and how incredibly PHENOMENAL it has been, what I have learned, seen, been, felt - seriously one of the best years of my life. I think of how, I could be in a worse situation or be sick or be dead, yeah all those are quite drastic but think: worse case scenario. Maybe its the human condition, maybe its the stark reality of life or death. Emotional feeling or labels we put on people doesn't justify who they are, they are just the same as each and every one of us, other than the fact that they are completely different. Woah, just think about it openly for a second.

And for another realization of mine, I have no idea where the state of AIDS is in America at the moment, and I feel incredibly embarrassed to actually admit this. Living in Maine doesn't really help, though its a bad reason to state (no pun intended there). It just seems like its not there (the message and the presence) as it would be in Boston, NYC, Washington any major urban area. Isn't this a little odd? And I know World AIDS day just passed us by, and I didn't even realize it. I want to become more socially conscious of this epidemic. When I lived in NH my mother worked for the state and was involved in the epidemiology with HIV/AIDS. I was a little too young to fully understand the social connotation connected to it; this was in the early and mid 90s I know they didn't have the medicine nor the technology to treat and suppress some of the symptoms like they do now, it was (still is) major. Rent just in a way brought these thoughts into my head, made me think of other diseases such as cancer/leukemia that are so close to me. Its a scary realization that in this day of age with the technology we have, the human body is still one of the most powerful machines ever, and our own brain can't even match its power (unless we learn how to unlock the dormant areas of the brain but thats a huge other topic I would love to get into/research but not here....) So, I am really glad there are movies and art is out there (yes music too) that makes me think and inspired me to have an open mind and the ability to change my life. 525,600 minuets from now I hope this realization sticks with me.

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