shroud ourselves in the cosmos; let the music play

I am at my parents' house with the kitties and the fish and we're all quite happy, even though Ducky is nervous & doing quite a lot of hiding under tables. OH SO yesterday morning Baxter knocked over the fishbowl... but I was at home, thank god, and was able to scoop Huw up into a cup of water and he seems quite fine now, so that's okay. But now I have to get a new fishbowl. Possibly a covered one? Do they make covered fishbowls, or would that just be a fish tank?

We'll be going to my auntie's house for Binge-Eating, and prior to that I have to get to make pumpkin pies! I love making pumpkin pie.

Also, I got sweet potatoes at the grocery store this week and I'll probably try one of the spiced sweet potatoes recipies I found last Thanksgiving and didn't make yet.

Next week, I will be baking two (2!) vegan chocolate cakes for Friday (and maybe Thursday) -- one for my music ed class because I promised, and one for the reception for the Contempo Flux concert. Also I have a bunch of projects to do, which are due beginning next Thurs. and staggered through the next week or so.

Oh, resolution of massive orchestra angst: I'm off the hook for Messiah, New Master's Student will be playing. It took an awkward ran-into-Maestro-in-the-hallway conversation to get the decision, but at least now I don't have Big-Ass Conflicts? Oooh, I need to get a book about the Constitution and figure out when I'm going to take that test. Perhaps Monday the 7th, I think I have time then.

And, of course, what I'm really supposed to be doing right now, instead of lying in bed with Ducky (Baxter is exploring and being social) and livejournalling, is working on apps -- I've finished the easy bits, now all that's left are resumes and personal statements and work experience and applications for graduate assistantships. These are also the parts I have the least desire to do, naturally. The deadline is 11:59 pm Tuesday for everything, I think, but I want to try to finish before then. *shrug* Honestly, I'm far more concerned with the kitties. ENDLESS ENTERTAINMENT!

So I just spent the last three? 3.5? hours lying on my bedroom floor, poking around websites of music schools around the country (though mostly on the other side of the Rockies, if not the Appalachians) and trying to decide where I want to apply. I made a chart detailing the location, bassoon faculty, admissions deadlines, audition dates, and repertoire requirements for ten schools, on a sheet of butcher paper that's about three feet by three feet. Jesus.

Schools: Northwestern, Manhattan SoM, Carnegie Mellon, Juilliard, Roosevelt, Peabody (Johns Hopkins), Mannes, San Francisco Conservatory, Yale, Cleveland Institute of Music.

I also had tabs open at various points for UCLA, That Other School, Boston Conservatory, New England Conservatory, De Paul, Curtis, Eastman, Oberlin, Rice, and Indiana (@ Bloomingdale), but they didn't make the chart for various reasons... wrong location, teachers I've never heard of, teachers I doubt will be a good fit, lack of MM programs, unappealing gossip from friends...

I'm sort of overwhelmed. At least my preliminary research in September paid off -- the TRICERATOPS ASSLOAD of music I'm preparing puts me in good stead for... well, everywhere, pretty much.

Still, I feel I should whittle down this list, if for no other reason than to save my parents money on application fees and travel arrangements (and, you know, so I don't have a paperwork-related breakdown, and so fewer professors will hate me for giving them inadequate letter-of-recommendation-writing time). Right?

SO. ( my thought process, let me show you it. )

In other news: today's frustrations.
Remember that panic attack I almost had yesterday, which happened mainly because suddenly my day of Rest And Big Decisions got hijacked by a rehearsal and a busywork class group project meeting?
Neither thing happened. No, I'm not kidding. I hauled my ass out of bed and drove to campus on a holiday, and I couldn't get hold of three of the four people I was trying to schedule-on-the-fly with, and I sat around texting/e-mailing/on the phone for about an hour that I could have used for other things, like staying home and sleeping or doing grad school legwork. And then it became clear that the rehearsal couldn't happen, and the project guys were still incommunicado, and I figured, hell, I'm here in the music building, I can at least practise. So I did, for about two hours, and it wasn't great. My hands were not working today, and the left one kept having worrisome numbness.

But damn, that was all morning that I could have spent sleeping or charting, but no.

Things still to do today:
- read article on race and music school admissions
- write lesson plan for busywork class's midterm two weeks ago
- look over piece for busywork class group project, think on lesson plan (to be hastily written tomorrow between 11 and 12, extending to 2 if necessary. There goes my chance at getting lunch.)

And I was hoping for an opportunity to go shopping, because I am out of chips and cheese and crackers, but that's probably no longer on the table, either.

Percent of my shit that I currently have together: ZERO.

BLG #1 demanded to know why it isn't possible to create new documents in MS Word on the computers in the media room. I helpfully told her that she can create and edit in Word on any of the six computers in the main reading room, four of which are on a bar, intended to be used while standing, and two of which are on a normal-height table by the window, with chairs and everything. She huffed at me that she didn't want to type an entire paper standing up, and I indicated to her that one of the sitting computers was, in fact, available for use. She again asked why that option wasn't on all the computers, and told me that it was "stupid." That's nice, honey, you can pass that complaint on to the computing commons people -- because I just work circulation, I am certainly not in charge of what you can and can't do on our public workstations.

BLG #2 rushed up to the desk and asked whether, if she gave me her student ID number, I could "type it in" to some nebulous device so that she could print a document without having to physically swipe her ID card. No, I told her, that's not how it works. She said, she's in a hurry and her card is down the hall and isn't there any way? If she really can't be bothered to go get her card from wherever it is inside the building, she can buy a visitor card for $0.57 and swipe that to print her document, I inform her. She huffs and begins to run out the door, and stops just outside the security gate to say, "I don't see why I can't just give it my number." I tell her that it's accessing a monetary account and so the magnetic strip must be read, just like at the vending machines or any of the campus stores. She asks if I would pass on her complaint to her. No, I say, you can take it up with the reprographics department yourself.

AAAAUUUUUGH.

And then at 7:00 all the public workstations were Not Working -- any function we tried to access from the Start menu, which is the only thing you can access on the public workstations, presented us with an error message saying that the function was restricted. They seem to be up and running now, though, and I have no idea what happened or how it got fixed, especially since the Help Desk person I called on the phone said the person who deals with it got off at five and the soonest they could send someone to help was tomorrow morning. I suspect Irish Tech Boss sweet-talked the computers into working.

And now that I've spent 15 minutes on LJ, and 20 minutes before that organizing my 50 zillion open windows into 50 zillion open tabs in a handful of windows, sorted by subject, instead of working on my "Teaching Materials Project" (in which I have to make two lists of pieces to hypothetically use in my first year of teaching, one for middle school and one for high school), I'm gonna go see the Undergrad Composers Concert! Yaaaaaaaay not doing homework. Also, I have not played bassoon at all today. And I also still have not decided where I want to go to grad school. ffffffffffuuuuuckkkkkkk. Actually Wednesday is a holiday, and I have Big Plans to devote it to (1) Grad School and (2) Sleep, so I'm pretty excited. Being able to see that on the horizon gives me hope for surviving today and tomorrow. Especially since, this weekend, I put sleep as my highest priority, and thus got nothing done.

It upsets me that I so egregiously don't have my shit together right now.

Also! I wrote Flatmate a passive-aggressive note this morning. More later.

From yesterday:
things that MUST happen tomorrow:
- call ucpd and schedule fingerprinting/background check, preferably for FRIDAY, EARLYISH because I have to turn materials in to the school of ed on Friday. Scheduled for Tuesday and I'll just have to plead my case to the School of Ed Office of Student Services -- well i was planning to do it earlier this week but then i was really really sick and after i was able to leave the house again, the next available appointment was on tuesday... *pout*
- find online form for fingerprinting/background check, fill in applicable fields
- figure out APLE application business, fill out appropriate forms.
- call mum re: rent money, necessity or lack thereof of funds transfer?

New To-Do-Tomorrow-Or-Else List:
- fill out live scan paperwork
- figure out APLE shit
- make pilgrimage to Sch of Ed OSS & turn shit in
- OMG PROJECT. Because guess what didn't get done today, either? !!! :D
- call student's mom re: scheduling lesson for Sunday (or not. I might beg off. sorry i can't teach your daughter how to play bassoon today, i am sick. *pout*)
- to Petsmart for kibble
- to Rite Aid for drugs. and maybe also chips. because I'm out of chips and that sucks.
- to Aah's for pith helmet? I'm probably not going to do anything Saturday night because I'm sick, even if I am starting to feel better, but that doesn't make me want a pith helmet any less. *sigh* I guess dinosaur tamer costume must wait another year...

Aaaaand I had a whole shitload of music worked up for my lesson last week, but it turned into hammering scales and then therapy, so I didn't get to play any of it for my teacher. And then I forget whether I practised very much last week but I suspect not that much? Maybe some. Except then I was sick and missed this week's lesson, and this week I have been sick and have not practised at all, except last night so my fingers could re-learn Mahler, and now there will be lessons on Monday again and I no longer have things worked up. Fie.

Also, being sick apparently interferes with my ability to access my vocabulary? The word I was grasping at yesterday when I was babbling about "upper harmonics" was in fact overtones. And it's still hard to tune if you can't hear your own overtones, btw. Also, tonight after the concert, I was blowing water out of the contra and my ear popped. It hurt a little, and seems like not a good sign. I might also stop at student health to see whether the antibiotics did their job.

But in other news, know what's tasty? Chai tea with Kahlua in.

So, yeah. I stayed home from school today, to nurse my sinus pressure, sniffles, and post-nasal drip. I thought I didn't have a fever, but then it turned out I was just reading my thermometer wrong, and when I thought it said 98.6 it actually said 99.0. Hey, stop scoffing, it's a logical mistake to make, considering my poorly-designed thermometer. They made me get one of those mercury-free ones, and it's weird to read and it's massive and hard to keep under my tongue. Boo. So I had been planning to take a lazy day in the apartment with the kitties and all the homework I hadn't done.

Except Flatmate also stayed home sick, because she had "a tickle in her throat" and wanted to nip it in the bud. Which ruined my plans, and I ended up spending most of the day avoiding her under the guise of napping. GOD WHY DOES SHE TALK SO MUCH? I did nap for real, some, which was fine. Flatmate also made chicken soup, which is good and bad: good because her chicken soup is delicious (although I haven't had any of this batch yet because I haven't been hungry today, so I had breakfast around nine and then lunch around four and no dinner, although I did just eat a pop tart), but bad because it made the apartment hot and stuffy, and now everything reeks of onion.

And I still haven't done the (4-5 page) project for my one actual class with the school of education -- which is due tomorrow evening... I guess I'll do it tomorrow morning? I haven't decided if I'll go to work/class tomorrow, although I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to skip orchestra rehearsal since our concert is on Thursday. I might go to school just for orchestra and then go back home without going to the ed class afterwards. I did read the 40-page article that I was supposed to read last week, though... it was interesting, about education and social class, and the different kinds of knowledge that are taught at different class schools, and the reproductive or transformative powers thereof. But it was just 40 pages long and full of tiny blurry print and typos. Whatever.

Mostly, I'm just glad not to have died of sinus pressure today, like I thought I would when it woke me up at four in the morning. I wish I could have gotten more actual sleep, though. How can I be so bad at naps? And now that it's proper bedtime, why is it so hard to fall asleep?

1. OH MY GOD BUSYWORK CLASS WTF.
- four hours of bad-quality video to watch (srsly one of them was so damaged that the screen blanked out every few seconds and the audio was wavering ALLLLLLL over the place. WTF BUSYWORK TEACHER YOU WANT US TO LEARN ABOUT CHORAL TEACHING BY NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE OR HEAR THE CLASS?)
- "video review" that contributes to a 30% chuck of the final grade, for which we have NO GUIDELINES WHATSOEVER THANKS FOR THAT
- five (+ about four more that were SEKRITLY STAPLED TOGETHER) articles (admittedly short) to read
- ONE-PARAGRAPH SUMMARIES of aforementioned articles (which I have not done and have very little intention to)
- take-home mini-quiz which BTW WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN IN THE LAST CLASS WAY TO GO WITH THE TIME MANAGEMENT BUSYWORK TEACHER
- random-ass songs to learn and analyse vowels of? I DON'T EVEN KNOW.
To sum up: WTF BUSYWORK CLASS GTFO

2. OMG BASSOON. WHERE DID ALL MY TCHAIK 4 MOJO GO? I swear it's all Charlie's fault, I felt happy about that excerpt until I started working on it with him. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF IT TOOK ME 3 YEARS OF NO CHARLIE TO GET MY SCHEHEREZADE MOJO BACK I DON'T HAVE 3 MORE YEARS FOR TCHAIK. Also: DEAR REEDS, STOP SUCKING PLS. KTHX.

3. DEAR WEATHER, WTF R U DOIN? It was cold and rainy, and then it was hot and muggy and today was foggy-but-superbright and then I was inside all day and then it was cold and I actually needed to use the heater in the car this evening. What??

4. Note to self: YOU CAN'T PEEL OUT WHEN IT'S RAINING. YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TRACTION FOR THAT. It's okay, though, it happened each time within the first 3 minutes I was driving and none of them were situations that required peeling out and there were no crashes or anything and then after it happened I remembered to accelerate more slowly.

5. ... I don't really know but I feel like there should be a 5. Look for a future post about Star Trek waffles? YES THEY EXIST THIS IS TRUFAX. I sort of wonder how Zoe Saldana feels about people eating her face on waffles. For that matter, also Chris Pine and Zach Quinto (<3 <3 <3)

6. omg i am watching so much star trek. I FOUND ALL THE CHANNELS THAT TOS AND TNG ARE ON AND I DVR THEM AND IT IS WONDERFUL. I LOVE STAR TREK LIKE BURNING.

7. I keep forgetting that having an ear infection is in fact "being sick" -- I run around doing all the things I would normally do and since I'm not coughing or sneezing or feverish or achy or nauseous, I don't actually consider it "being sick" except for the part where my ear sometimes feels funny/painful and I have to take MASSIVE HORSE PILLS three times a day. Except I keep spontaneously sleeping. On the couch in front of the TV, dozing lightly in the library in front of the VCR setup (I HATE YOU BUSYWORK CLASS), taking 3-hour naps in my parents' living room... Well, maybe that's not so unusual -- I tend to fall asleep/take extravagant naps every time I go home, it seems. But still. It's also waaay too hard to get up in the mornings. THANKS BUT NO THANKS, EAR INFECTION.

8. At least I don't have 'flu like my brother. Yeah, apparently today he has a 100-degree fever and coughing. GET YOUR FLU SHOTS, KIDS. Swine flu and seasonal flu. (o btw I was definitely misinformed about the whole "swine flu is the only flu active in the u.s." thing -- there is ALSO regular old seasonal influenza and you should DEFINITELY get flu shots for both kinds k? some of my family from norcal has already had both kinds this fall.)

9. Oh! So, I glimpsed DIAF through the door in a rehearsal for one of the youth orchestras that uses our facilities. And I, like, wanted to get mad and hurt, or I tried to, or something... but then I realised that I don't care enough to get hurt and I don't have the energy for it and, you know what? That felt good. I still kind of wanted to key his car. I didn't, though -- I wanted to go home and eat dinner more. More good, yeah? Heh.

10. My grandma has a guava tree in her back yard and it has FRUIT and some of them are RIPE and so yesterday when we were at her house for lunch my mum and I went out and picked guavas!! And persimmons! (OMG SO MANY PERSIMMON. SO MANY.) I LOVE GUAVAS. I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT GUAVAS. THEY SMELL SO GOOD. AND OMG SO TASTY. I HAVE SO MANY GUAVAS. GUAVAS ARE LOVE. (corrolary: my family is love. SO MUCH LOVE.)

11. This business of being too busy for life sucks a lot, not least because it is making all of my LJ entries freakin' ENORMOUS. OH MY GOD INTERNET I MISS YOU SO MUCH

1. Can somebody please explain to me why the "seasonal Frank" for mid-September is tangled in flashing christmas lights?

wtf.

2. Practised, and suddenly realised how sloppy I have been this summer. I sound like ass. And I think I might deserve it. :/

3. School of Ed orientation this morning indeed answered questions and reassured us, although the classes we're supposed to be taking still are not on the Schedule of Classes. Also, I'm totally excited that the school we're doing observations at tomorrow morning is walking distance from my house :)

4. I feel a little burned out, and school hasn't even started. What the fuck. :c

5. Boss somehow cut her fingers pretty badly while cleaning windows this weekend? :C Poor Boss!

Dear Shoe Boy,
You're still gorgeous, but the after-hours drop at the library is meant to be used after hours. There is no bin there when we are open, which you could clearly see, because that wall is floor-to-ceiling windows. When we are open, you are meant to come the fuck inside and return your books in the inside drop bin.

Not as indulgent as you think I am,
Sigma

Composers, I swear.

Today when I looked out the window of my flat it was frighteningly hazy, and my chest was tight enough that I needed to use my inhaler without doing anything more than walking to the window, so I decided to delay today's run. Hopefully the air will be clearer this evening? If it isn't, I'll take today as a Day Of Rest and nudge the training schedule back a day. Or until I'm no longer afraid to open the windows. Granted, I'll likely have to regress to a smaller run-to-walk ratio, but that's okay. I'd rather not breathe smoke.

Yesterday I finally started my grad school research. I'm still running with this (admittedly baseless) idea that Chicago is A Place I Want To Be, so that would mean Northwestern (technically in Evanston but not prohibitively far from Symphony Center eh?), Roosevelt, or DePaul. From there I jumped to check out the New York schools (god the Manhattan SoM sounds fantastic but I'm a little afraid of NYC and I'd probably never ever get in anyway), and I'm working my way westwards. The idea is that I want to go to school far, far away. And apparently my parents want to have a Serious Conversation about that with me, which will be joyous, I'm sure. I know I was talking a lot a while ago about going to grad school in Europe, but... I dunno. It's proving difficult to find information on what schools are even "good," especially information in English (because I just don't have the patience to wade through real-life German right now), and I'm pretty sure I don't want to end up playing with any kind of European "sound," although the German sound is miles better than French or even English bassoon. And Europe might be prohibitively expensive right now. Plus I have latched onto Chicago-in-my-head, which is kind of undercutting my motivation to investigate European schools. Eh. Musicians (er, Amanda), where are the other schools I should be looking at? How have I studied music in college for four years without knowing this? How have my friends found out where they should apply? (Of course, now that I'm looking inside the U.S. I imagine my teacher will have a lot more info for me.)

Also! I just spent a good long while chatting with Former Dungeon Master Ben about schools and teaching and sci-fi (he's reading Asimov for the first time; I've been DVRing Star Trek TOS & TNG and overdosing on Torchwood and reading all sorts of interesting meta about Sci-Fi and Television and Issues) and just... life. And I loooooove Ben and I miss hanging out with him, but inside my head (probably not inside his) the spectre of J hangs between us and I definitely still want J to Die In A Fire. I definitely felt a lot less awkward today than a few months ago, though, which is comforting. Because we are, in fact, friends on our own merit and not just through J. I <3 Ben. (and god damn do I miss playing D&D. *pout*)

In other news, one of my fellow Library Assistants suggested putting honey in coffee, which I had never considered before (because honey is for tea!). I tried it today, and it was actually quite good. *shrug* Who knew?

To Do This Evening:
- run if the air is decent
- practise (despite kitties hiding)
- put a new bag into Mom's Badass Canister Vacuum (which is now MY badass canister vac because she got a fancy new one just like it but better and a different colour!! YAAAAY I LOVE MY MOMMY SHE GIVES ME HER CAST-OFF AUTOMOBILES AND HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES) and vacuum the shit (NOT LITERAL SHIT YOU GUYS) out of my bathroom and the kitties' scratching post and cat carrier, which have been outside de-fleaing and de-Raiding for the past week and are probably now covered in ash.
- make pesto??? -- my basil has gotten pretty large -- and pasta go to with :)
- hang out with Dory, who asked this morning if he could crash on my couch. Yay! I hope he's not allergic to cats... Not that they'll be on him or anything, they sleep with me with the door shut, but still. Dander and all.
- deal with more of my Desk Heap maybe? I got a little bit of it sorted the other night -- or at least, it's now an orderly tower of stuff on top of the printer instead of a jumble of crap all over everywhere. I'm finding myself with a shocking lack of space for papers and things, though, and I don't really know how that happened, because I can't imagine where all these papers used to be hiding. I don't know, Abergavenny? oh god torchwood in my brain
- Pow-wow with Flatmate re: rent, which is due, to find out how we're adjusting for her doing automatic deposits for the cable. (know what SUCKS though? the building manager called me this morning and informed me that the pet deposit will be $400 which is a lot more than I anticipated. Aaaaarg.)
- OMG CUT TIES WITH PAC PROMOS. Which means finding the original paperwork. Which reminds me.

PSA TIEM!!!
If you are approached by a representative of PAC Promos, Inc., DON'T LET THEM TALK YOU INTO ANYTHING. RUN THE OTHER WAY. This mostly applies to ladies who have cause to be on a college campus in SoCal, because that is where they approach people (that is where they approached me).
The discounted salon services sound really nice but they charge you $20 a month and they DON'T STOP. I ended up not even being able to make time for any of the salon trips before the offer expired. At the time, I figured, "Oh well, whatever, I am allowed to make poor choices with my own money" (and $20 a month is definitely my own money, and not my parents') and assumed that they'd stop charging me once the offer expired. NOT SO. Which I did not notice until yesterday. Fuck me. And all the reviews I've read say that cutting ties with them is a huge hassle, which I'm not looking forward to.

... Hooray! Or not.

1. I might have finally started to like Evanescence. I know I used to be snide about them and the "my clothes are black LIEK MY SSSSSSOOOOOOUUUUULLLLLLL" crowd that was into them when I was in... middle school? high school? but "Bring Me To Life" came on in the car on the way to work and... it clicked for me. Huh. I need to revisit this band.

2. Other Bands I Dig Right Now: Paramore, Franz Ferdinand, Linkin Park (CRAAAAAAAAAAAAWLING IIIIIN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN hahahaaaaaa -- but also apparently Brad Delson was pretty awesome as the keynote speaker for Commencement 2009 WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY CLASS OOPS I BLAME YOU MUSIC ED). Plus I'm still totally into Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Cake. To say nothing of my all-consuming love affair with Muse. I'm definitely going to get The Resistance. Even though my disc drive is broken still/again. (I want to have sex with their songs. It's a little distressing.)

3. I did some detective work about my Pulcinella question and uncovered a bunch of other things about it that didn't match up, so I've turned to the authorities: the conductor and his TA. I anxiously await answers.

4. I talked to Boss about it and she says that the kittens probably do still have fleas (I haven't seen any fleas, on the kittens or elsewhere, but I keep finding flea dirt where they've been sitting). So tonight, the plan is to drive to LB and get some spray for the furniture from my mum (and a more badass vacuum -- I Dirt Devil'd the room last night but it's honestly just too much room (She cannae take any more, Captain!) for a poor little Dirt Devil to handle. Which almost makes me question the capacity of a Roomba to handle it... but then, Roombas are designed for entire rooms. Dirt Devils are designed for small, localized messes, like a knocked-over plant pot, and mine does better on carpet than flooring anyway. In conclusion, Roomba: STILL WANT), and to use the spray and bathe the kittens (a regular bath, with warm water and baby shampoo) either tonight or tomorrow morning, whichever works better logistically. And to launder my bedsheets AGAIN.
Fuck I hate fleas. Nasty little fuckers.

5. The kittens had tapeworms from the fleas. I lived in the same room as the kittens and the fleas all weekend. Presumably, I was bitten by the fleas as well. Should I get checked for tapeworm too??? (Boss says probably not.)

6. Things to get from a petstore, maybe also tonight:
- flea collars (to cut up and put in vacuum bags?)
- safety collars for the kittens to wear (they'll have to be v. small)
- flea medicine (Advantage/Frontline/whatever, the kind where you put the drops on the animal's skin (usu. back of the neck))

7. I made a tentative schedule of my classes for Fall, and what I want to know is, WHY IS EVERYTHING ON MONDAY. WHY. Seriously, Monday will likely begin at 8-fuckin-ayemme with a 4-hour education class, and then in the afternoon, there are four things, two that I have to do and two that I want to do, which overlap with each other variously. And won't end until 10 at night. One of those things is Wind Ensemble (and honestly I'll probably be able to get away with only coming on Wednesdays); another is a chamber music class that I might not want to take anyway, since I only enjoy it about 30% of the time (the other 60% I'm either bored or biting my tongue so I don't dress down my classmates), and the pianist I usually work with is super-swamped and I don't know if she'll take the class either. So I guess that resolves my issue -- I take the required ed. classes and don't worry about the performance classes -- but it's still ridiculous that things are so on top of each other. I'm going to have a conflict with orchestra, too, but it's not as egregious -- I'd only be missing the last hour of rehearsal, one day a week. 5 hours out of 6 is not so terrible, right? (It's certainly better than 2 hours out of 4, but what can you do?)

8. The library is FREEZING. We put a thermometer out in the main room and it is 67 degrees Fahrenheit where I sit. Short Chris said that when he came in this morning it was only 64 degrees, so this is an improvement, but not enough of one -- my fingers are still stiff and a little numb. NB: Google says it's 87 degrees outside. DEAR UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 20 DEGREES IS A BIG FUCKING DEAL. YOU WANT TO SAVE MONEY? CUT YOUR ENERGY COSTS BY FIXING YOUR GODDAMN THERMOSTAT. I WOULD LIKE TO NOT WORK IN A MEAT LOCKER, KTHX.

9. According to Google, today is the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope! Yay! Accordingly, their logo is all steampunked out. Hee. :)