bone in sub

tomorrow afternoon i have my last exam! assuming i pass everything, i’ll have this degree and be done with the hundreds of unpaid gigs and all the uneducational busy work. i have learned a lot, completely changed as a person/grown up, done a ton of fun things, and met some awesome folks, but i will be glad to be done, and have no intention of any further education anytime soon.

a couple things were especially cool in the last month: my final project for music recording was just “make an album, and write about the process”. that was it, open-ended. i recorded a classical harp album which i had a lot of fun doing, and for the writeup ended up writing about two pages on what i did, why, and what i thought of it. it was satisfying to write, and it took no time at all. this was in sharp contrast to the three research papers i wrote in the couple weeks preceding – writing about something i enjoy and know a lot about is GREAT. such a refreshing feeling after that crap.

speaking of research papers, one of my three non-performance classes posted the grades tonight. i turned it in one day late (10% off), had done it the night before, and it was two pages below the quota. i was pretty nervous about the grade. imagine my surprise when i see that i got a 78, AFTER the lateness penalty. that’s 25% of my grade and i got a similarly high mark on the midterm, i’m going to do well in that course!

the other unmusical courses are film and astronomy. the film exam i was SUPER worried about, because i hadn’t been to class or seen any of the movies since early january. i was expecting them to screen a few films and ask us to identify and discuss the segments, which i would have completely bombed, but there was NO screening whatsoever! i had never written for 3 hours straight, but that’s what the exam was. i smoked the two long essay questions (i think), so i feel like i did pretty well on that exam. last film exam i was petrified about and i got a high B, so that bodes well.

astronomy was amazing – every couple weeks i get on a big space kick, and spend a few hours reading about space. this combined with my good memory paid off well – in a class of 300 people, i was the first one out of the two hour exam. the proctor had to run and get the class roster for me to sign, and then read through my whole exam to make sure i didn’t actually skip a section. awesome. i felt great about that exam, and that doesn’t usually happen!

COME ON!

this is the shirt my university gave all of its students this year. this travesty was covered by an iron-on sticker with the correct spelling.

yesterday i had a bunch of time to kill in between rehearsals, so i brought my computer up to school so i could catch up on sending emails. upon opening it, wireless didn’t work at all, and when i restarted it took literally 10 minutes to get to desktop. i got an error about wireless drivers bla bla bla, and i couldn’t figure out how to fix it. this was a new feeling – i’ve always known how to fix (winxp) computers or at least where to start. i’ve learned a ton over the past month since i got this macbook, but i had to start from the beginning learning how drivers (.kexts) work and how to extract a new one from the install dvd and inject it. it was quite satisfying!

today is the last day of classes…for the rest of my life? i’m not ruling out graduate school later in life, but after 8 years of university, i’m done with writing papers and sitting through 2-hour lectures. the last concert i’ll play at this school is tonight, and i’m playing timpani in tchaikovsky’s fifth. yesterday in the dress rehearsal i detuned the 32″ with a solo roll. this is going to be a fun show! this semester’s conductor, ivars taurins, is a lot of fun to play under. not only does he have interesting interpretations of the score, he has intelligent things to say about my part and (most important, and selfish) asks for me to play as loud as the score actually asks for. i’d say an average dynamic of ff, and going up to a soloistic fff in some places.

i got marks back on one of my aforementioned research papers. after my recital, i spent a significant amount of time writing a paper for film, which i turned in a week late, followed by writing my astronomy paper in one 12-hour overnight stretch. a bunch of nonsense about terraforming mars, a topic i’m legitimately interested in, but not so interested that i could write 12 pages off the top of my head. after cursory research and a lot of faking, i turned it in 5 days late for a total of 20% off. yesterday i saw that i’d been given a 50 – i was happy to have (barely) passed, but a little disappointed that i didn’t do so well. after many years of writing all my papers the night before (and the morning of) the due date, i’ve gotten pretty good at getting As and Bs and still expending the minimum effort. i realized during rehearsal yesterday that i had actually gotten a 70, the 50% was after the ‘late fee’. writing a term paper for a 300-level astronomy course in one night and getting a B? i’m pretty happy about that.

i’ve managed to do every single research paper this year after the due date. like, do all of the research and actually write it after it was supposed to be turned in. oops! at least i have good excuses – these are all just elective classes i need to graduate (film, astronomy, latin america) rather than real subjects i enjoy (music performance). the last of these papers is why i’m awake right now, and also why i’m posting a blog entry instead of being productive. ugh

awesome: last may some friends and i got a gig teaching elementary school kids extracurricular music for a month. quincy and elliot, two of the most hilarious ones from one of the schools we taught at, are featured in this torontoist article. i couldn’t believe my eyes so i sent it to will, one of my friends that i taught with, and he confirmed it.