Random Thoughts

Last night was Halloween and I spent it with a glass of wine, cleaning house, and then watching a movie. Our apartment requires you to buzz in, so even though my roommate, Sarah, bought candy, no children came to our door. Bojan and Sarah went to the orchestra. They were playing the movie "Psycho" while performing the music. Honestly it was nice to have one evening at home alone.

Today I have a ton of homework and computer work to do. The school is bringing in a brass quintet to record a piece of ours... which will be written after this. I am not very familiar with brass quintet repertoire so I called in a favor on Facebook from friends. Had a nice response of advice and pieces to go score study. It's really nice to have such great musician friends to fall back on as a composer.

School is going... ok. There are some great things about how it's working. But, there are things that are not working. We are trying to get a meeting together with the directors to talk about suggestions. This program is in it's first year. The reasons I choose this college over the others are working out. Part of it for me is that we have one day for orchestration, and it makes me proud to say the orchestration class I took at DU was amazingly thorough and well done. I am also proud to say I know a TON more about 20th Century Music then I expected. So in those two classes I have only gotten a couple new tid-bits.... This isn't suppose to be a complaining session, but rather proof that my undergrad was WELL worth it. The things that have been nice are the guests (Gary Schymann, Christopher Young). I have learned a LOT from them about the industry and about writing for this type of field. I also really loved the recording aspect of this college choice. We have had multiple professionally done recordings of our pieces.

Meanwhile, the past two days I have been in a lot of physical pain. Yesterday I was completely uncomfortable. I was doing better. Found a very good chiropractor and had a massage. But now my hand is very swollen and has very little grip. I feel like a terrible musician. I am 3 years out of practice playing piano. A couple days ago it was someones birthday and I couldn't even remember how to play Happy Birthday on the piano! How pathetic is that! I feel like a completely worthless musician. I would really love to take lessons again. I am not sure in what though. Maybe voice? Because that wouldn't require using my hand. I don't know. I just feel like I need to get back in touch with "making music" rather then just "composing music". At the same time I have to do something that I can physically manage. Even typing on the computer right now, I can only use the middle finger of my right hand so my thumb and pointer finger wont hurt. Pathetic.

Brendan's job assignment in Saudi Arabia looks like it will take him up until Christmas. Our original plan was to tour Europe on my break. He should get the week of Xmas and New Years off, MAYBE the week before Xmas. But if the job doesn't go well he will have to go right back for January. So I am not sure what I am going to do. I will wait a bit more and see how his job goes. Tour Europe by myself? Just go home? I don't know.

I am really missing my pets. If it weren't $1800 to ship my cat out here I would have done it in an instant. (And that was just one way. We'd have to do it again to bring her back). I am also missing Mexican food. We went to a place that looked like a Chipotle. I had a taco with shredded lamb.... I swear it had cinnamon in it. It was good. BUT WEIRD! It's hard to find beans other then baked (which is what they have for breakfast... again weird :) ) I really REALLY miss flavored creamer though. That's my biggie right now :) I am getting use to riding my bike everywhere. Kind of enjoy it actually. I do love sitting at cafes. Lattes are good. There are SO many adorable little dogs everywhere. Swans. Wild swans all over the place. Very cool.