The title of this post is quite fitting to say the least. There is a deadline coming, a late night tonight, and potential exhaustion by mid-week. It's only the beginning of the third week of the semester, the second full-length week. Yes, I am sitting here writing this and not working, or doing homework, I need to write, but not academically. I am fragmented, its monday its life!

Since the beginning of this semester I have realized a ton of new epiphanies, they have been dropping on my head like snowflakes. <Warning tangent alert> It is snowing, I wore my birki sandals the past two days, nothing like global warming... Thank goodness its snowing </end of tangent> Like most students starting the semester I have been challenged by the horrid effects of not focusing. At the same time when I fall into focus there is such brilliance and clarity that I am retaining information like never before. Amazing. If only I had more time for these quasi-euphoric experiences of academic masochism. I have bonded once again with my violin (piano is still there and roaring, and i am juggling the two). Oh my dear little German Hopf how you are in need of a tune up and some love; a new bow too but lucky enough my wonderful Jennie is letting me borrow a fabulous one. I am playing in the UMF orchestra once again and now I have to say playing the Mozart Piano Concert 23 is absolutely undeniably incredible. The first movement is like eating the best food or wine in the world or trotting around Venice or watching one of the best Sunsets of the summer, the second movement is like witnessing the eyes roll back into the head of someone who is struck by unrequited love and at the same time had a knife plunged and turned into their heart. What odd images music evokes... Sorry ol' 250yr old chap, but Mozart you slacked on the third movement. Maybe it will catch my ears differently as time progresses. It is one of those works I grew up listening to about 50,000 times. My mum must have had a tape or cd with the 21st and the 23 piano concertos on it. Every weekend as a child it would be on repeat all day I swear, both are imprinted in my brain like ABC, 123, CAT, DOG. She would play the 21st more than the 23 but nonetheless they are branded. Thanks Mom, you might not be a musician but you know how to make an impression on a kid. That and the violin one christmas. (okay now its getting sappy) Oh, and after further realization I take back my comments from Music Seminar last semester calling Mozart just another Joe, such mindlessness.

I am currently embarking on a little journey called my life. NO REALLY! Another epiphany I had was that by golly I am living the life that in the first two years of my college career I would have killed someone for. A week from friday (2/10 @ 7:30 Nordica Auditorium UMF) I join my distinguished professor and colleague in music history crime (okay maybe the former is more valid) concert pianist Steven Pane in concert. He is playing Ives - Three Page Sonata Janacek - From the Streets and Scriabin - Fifth Sonata and i will present the music history and analysis of the pieces as a good little quasi-musicologist would, all technological and such. All the research I have been doing since June is coming to its deceptive cadence. I say this because Scriabin has really gotten my little research toe caught in a big 'want to write on everything' vice.... OHH dear
Scared? of the Concert/presenation. Um, sure to be honest I think my blood pressure goes up immensely just writing and finishing the powerpoint. EH. And it shouldn't because I am becoming incredibly more comfortable in front of classes, groups, etc either playing or presenting. I should follow dear Ives and just "knock the mollycoddles out" of me.
Presently as I sit here I have about 1/3 of the presentation done. Into the night I hope for 2/3rd and into the afternoon tomorrow I hope for the happy whole. I might be exaggerating with that but by golly I am driven, well driven to the point of mere limits of Meg but oh "these are the days my friends, these are the days" HA! Someday I will look back and say, I only wish... Oh, but I shouldn't say that life should be more adventurous than the limitations of present ideas.

And I would also like to mention my little Electro-Acoustic project and it's progress. I have three songs, two are a part of the four2minutes work. SA-5 is a wonderful look at summer, oh sun, shorts, swimming, and the smell of grass I miss you dearly. After I complete four2minutes I will attempt the Italian Catalogs possibly 5 works. This is the work I have been meaning to do since June. Then I will release my first album of EA works called Meggleswerks, under the name of Quilisma including all of the above.

No, I haven't been drinking.
My mother asked me on the phone the other day "Are you happy" and I replied: "Of all the work I do and all the headaches it gives me, all the stress there is nothing but a feeling of accomplishment in the end. Yes, I guess I am happy."
I guess that sums up this part of my life.

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http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060108/news_1a08original.html

What an interesting article... And it took until now for someone to say something?
Boy oh boy oh boy... What is the music world coming to?

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The spring semester of my junior year begins on tuesday on a wonderful note. I am now a Music/Writing major, the only one at my spectacular establishment. Life should be quite interesting this semester. I plan to go no hold barred on the academics (my past includes an abundance of extra-curricular activities, now it won't). And for once I just might make music #2 NOOO #1.5 *gasp*... Yes hard to believe I started reading the writing book before the Beethoven book, or the Burkholder. With close to 35-40 credits in music alone I think writing deserves a little attention, and music right behind it. I am TAing the Electro Acoustic Music course which is going to be a blast and a half and a totally open class format. In fact right now I am waiting to see after next wed, and friday what my role is as a TA it will be decided in part by me, prof, and students which is cool. This method comes from John Tagg's Learning Paradigm which is the biggest buzz at UMF since we were named #1 for the umpteenth year in a row in our category in US News college guide. Without reflection I forget how cool of a place I go to school is and how I wonder what it must be like to go to a school where your one of a million people. I was part of a Strategic Planning On-Campus Retreat this past wed. The school is changing to a 4 cr. system next fall, the academic curriculums have been completed now its the student side of it, re-allocation of funds and all that goodness. I had so much fun at the meetings brainstorming, making points etc. It felt like the trip to Quebec. And everything that everyone, staff, fac, and students came up with its probably going to be taken seriously which is amazing within itself. Now that I have readied myself for the semester next week (at the beginning of the week I was far from being ready) I think its going to be great, I am starting off on the right footing. I have a list of paper topics I want to tackle, possibly publishing in the newspaper, new major, TAing (which includes concert trips, composing, all sorts of stuff who knows yet), yeah, this semester is going to be good.

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Its the middle of break. Its almost over. I do really want to get back I am bored, but at the same time I am lazy now. Maybe I needed a week with my cousin to become absolutely lazy. But I don't like this feeling at all. I am going to pick up the books, they are right in front of me. I have to pick up the job or else I won't be ready for the concert. Now that it's a month away it scares me a little, right now I am lazy as heck and I need to get going! I haven't reviewed my research in a while and now I feel a distance from it. That is why I have from now till the end of the break to get my act together. When I think about last semester I really did run myself ragged, trying to learn and do so much that it was too much. There is a buzz word I keep on getting thrown at me, Balance. Really... seriously it seems impossible but this is yet just another bumps in the road of my life, figuring it all out and giving some things up.
I am also thinking of new topics for papers, there is so many topics. I go for big topics that I really shouldn't go for right now with the length of papers I am writing. I am thinking that maybe I should knock out major areas of history or composers so the basis is solidified before I go climbing mountains I can't. I suppose I am still at mole-hill stage... HEHE! I don't know what else to say, stuck in the middle I suppose.

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