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03/31/2008
Not so restelss
Apparently spending 20-30 minutes lying in boiling water scented with cinnamon and something else (couldn't work it out), listening to good music and reading a good book is something ideal for wearing me out. ... I am also impressed that I managed to type most of that whilst yawning, with my EYES SHUT! (no mistakes :P)
Done
Cycled
Eaten too much chocolate
Finished and Equal Music - :D :D :D :D :D amazing book! EVERYONE must read it
Made dough for bread for lunch.
Listened to A LOT of Mary McLaughlin
Cooked - even if I misjudged quantities, it worked ok as well
Sorted out some of my Itunes
Started a new book that is very good
Went to the gym
Tidied and swept the kitchen - left the dishes for tomorrow
90 minutes of worthwhile organ practise
Bought a dress - well technically Mummy paid but hey :P
Tidied room a littl, emphasis on the little
Started copying recepis
Should have Done
Knit a tension square on the firefly yarn
Oboe!!!!
Some notes for Chemistry Unit One
Want to Do
Sketch pattern for top I want to make and paint the silk
Finish the voluntary I am meant to be writing
Draw / paint
Write up the thoughts / notes from Good Friday
Not too bad really.
The dress is a beautiful dance dress officially.... layered and a velvet pattern pulled through the main material of the dress - any sewing person will understand that concept, but I don't know the right word for it. It needs a lot of work. Most of the bead/sequin detail has come off, but it is not essentail to replace that. However, it also needs adjusting along the seems across the hips, fortunately I just need to take it in a little... it would also be good to oversew a few seems where the material has pulled against a too coarse thread.... Sorry that the pictures are rotated around.
Going to have fun finding a bra that fits the back of the dress...
Example of the detail on the train... velvet against almost transparent somethingorother... blue black - photo does no colour justice
Please excuse the rediculous face... caught at just a bad moment
Still no justice done to the colour
Going to have fun with this one, particularly when it is taylored properly. :D
xXx
22:00 Posted in Complete Random Junk! | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this
Restless
I seem to be perpetally sitting down to something, applying myself for a few minutes and then losing interest and wondering off to find some other occuaption. I need to find some thing to distract me enough to let me be still, if only for 30 minutes. Even piano didn't really do it - just reminded me how much organ I desperately need to do... and the fact that I am not going to be prepared for my recital... then I started thinking about next term generally and the work I still need to do, the concerts, costume making for Kentwell, the parties I am obligated to go to... and the parties I want to go to.
I want to knit my jumper because it is pretty. I have a painting in my eyes that I was to create. I have lines of poems and motifs of songs and phrases to open stanza of philisophical prose clammouring for attention in my head. I want to go for a run but I don't have to the time... so instead I am sitting doing nothing and thinking about all the things I should be doing - useful.
So let us consider what I shall do today - and then I'll let you know what I actually achieve.
Already Done
Cycled
Eaten too much chocolate
Finished and Equal Music - :D :D :D :D :D amazing book! EVERYONE must read it
Made dough for bread for lunch.
Listened to A LOT of Mary McLaughlin
To Do
Tidy room a little
Copy up recepis from book lent by Yvonne
Knit a tension square on the firefly yarn
Organ
Oboe
Cook lunch / dinner
Go dress shopping with Mum
Go to the gym
Some notes for Chemistry Unit One
Listen to music recently put on computer - thank you agan darling
Want to Do
Sketch pattern for top I want to make and paint the silk
Finish the voluntary I am meant to be writing
Draw / paint
Write up the thoughts / notes from Good Friday
Best get started...
xXx
11:58 Posted in Complete Random Junk! | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this
03/23/2008
Chapter 4 - which is far too full of love
I love it when it is so cold that it hurts my face, but everything feels so clear and so alive.
I love wearing warm jumpers and long socks and curling up with a good book.
I love going running in the rain and dancing in all the puddles.
I love knowing that I've done something well
I love finding out what is on the other side of the mountain.
I love the smell of my hands after a few hours working in the garden.
I love telling the stories of the people depicted in paintings.
I love to watching the fire burn; or glowing embers.
I love feeling the wind against my skin.
I love waltzing around the kitchen.
I love sitting and tuning at a piano for hours and hours.
I love going out at night when the rest of the world is fast asleep.
I love dressing up fancy for no good reason.
I love making my friends laugh.
I love finding pictures in the clouds.
I love kicking up the leaves.
I love...
xXx
02:13 Posted in Life , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
03/20/2008
Home...
Well I'm back. And whilst I got used to the cold up North (took a few hours!), my room is still freezing - it is 04:43 and my heating has been off for 4 days now with no people in the room! Consequently, I am now curled up in my duvet and very warm and snuggly dressing gown (one of my few PINK items of clothing, so to speak) wearing my favourite jumper (red with teddy bears on) and for some reason (unknown) writing a blog post instead of sleeping.
Hey ho - it is what I do.
Went on Uni visits... I'm sure I will talk about this more either here or with people in person.
I LOVED the city of Durham. I am GOING to live there at some point in my life - if only for a year or two. In fact I Love the north generally and would really like to move up there... Cambridge is beautiful... but it is so ... clean-cut? ... compared to Durham. Although I did find the two surprisingly similar in style and aura.
I did not like the course... or rather, I didn't like the fact that they were ashamed of being academic about music.
Edinburgh City grew on me over the course of the day. At first it was just another city... (despite living in suburbs all my life I am most definitely *not* a city girl.) But over the course of the day I wondered around areas, found green, found little quirky shops that I loved, found a very good pizza place and most important of all found LOTS and LOTS of jazz, folk, salsa, shows, concerts, gigs, ceilidhs and music in general. It wasn't until the end of the day that I saw the sea... and that sealed it for me. I also love Edinburgh... Maybe not so much as Durham (It is still very much a city)... but I could easily love living there! I will go back and visit again in the summer :D
The course is also fantastic. Academic but with some performing. And the university has a really very impressive collection of concert halls, organs and MANY MANY MANY early instruments :D :D :D :D :D :D :D lol.... I also liked the lecturer and the way the student showing us around was holding a cope of "Music and the Reformation in England" - a brilliant period to study the socio-histoical context of music!
I am now going to have fun comparing to Cambridge... wish me luck!
*************
It is strange when you give your heart to something... particularly when you've spent so long swearing violently against it.
I seem to be doing that far too much at the moment; I'm not sure how many hearts I have left.
04:56 Posted in Complete Random Junk! , Life , Music , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (5) | Email this
03/17/2008
UNI VISITS
I am off... hoping (though unlikely) to catch the 9:04 train... Actually, now that I can pay by card it may be a lot quicker for me - though painful on my wallet! Durhham today and tomorrow, Newcastle tomorrow evening to visit Miles (:D) and then Edinburgh on the Wednesday and home that day as well. Should be brilliant. :D Lots of exploring and lots of new places.
Though I have had a sum total of 2 hours sleep. Only finished packing about 15 mins ago. Only knew train times (or Uni visit schedules) about 25 mins ago... still havn't finished dressing, or mended my coat.... No one else is up (except Em who doens't count because she is travelling the other direction). Oh and Chi might just be up - drying her hair now. Hey ho. Why be organised.
Actually that is a completely lie... I had organised everything completely by last night - I'd just not actualy located it and put it in a bag yet and knew I had time this morning. Anyway... activity calls. I shall bid you adieu.... look forward to my enthusiasm three days hence when I shall bore you all.
{probably not much university stuff... but there are always amusingly strange people on trains! :P)
Love
xXx
07:58 Posted in Complete Random Junk! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Familiar Home
Familiar is the path I walk
Along the one way street
I know the houses and the trees
The people that I meet
I recogise the worn grey stone
So weathered by the rain,
And push aside the great oak door
- So much is still the same
And still they celebrate the feast
In ways I know so well
The words imptinted on my lips,
The silence for the bell
Still all are welcomed, open smiles
Still song, prayer; still laughter,
Little patter of little feet,
Guardians follow after
And still this church in faith unites
To push old trials aside
To strengthen old community
- To make a fitting bride
It is always strange going back somewhere are a few months absense - gives you a new insight/perspective. I suppose this mostly stemmed from that. The rhythm is a little clumsy maybe, and forced in places... but it is sometimes simpler and clearer to write in verse.
04:56 Posted in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Insanity and Genius
Sorry... I've been watching films I shouldn't have again. This time it is the "Aviator" and "A Beautiful Mind". They always do silly things to my thinking. In fact I think last time I saw the former I swore I would never watch it again... so much for that. I held out easily when we didn't have the film, then someone received it for Christmas I believe and now here I am again. Silly really.
There is such a close tie between insanity and genius. Autism, schitzphrenia, bipolar, OCD, paranoia, ADHD... Think of all the renown thinkers, artists, mathematicians, scientists, musicians that you know of and tell me just how many of them were diagnosed with what is generally considered to be a brain defect - a mental incapacity of some form or another.
Ok, so the brain has a limitted number of nerurones and it is very rare (quite possible impossible) to develop new neurones once the bran has matured - although this is not certain as far as I am aware. It thereby follows that genius is merely a rewiring of those neurones to observe and respons to the world differently. To be able to see a pattern in a list of numbers that no one else can identify. To be able to theorise and interpret data that everyone else will write off. To listen to a melody and immediately see before you 8 different ways to harmonise the same cadence and to know instinctively which is the best for what you want to achieve. To be able to capture raw emotion on canvas and recreate history with words. To be able to see the flaws in structural design without even caluclating the trig. To be able to imagine the unattainable, the to reach out and grasp it.
It is like seeing the world through prismatic lenses... each image is offset, just a little - no more than 4 or 5 degrees from the normal - but offset. Their vision of the world is not clouded or distorted in anyway, no rose-tinted glasses, just refracted one slight fraction around so they see what compeltely escapes anyone else.
But with that altered perception, with that hightened awareness of life, with those rewired cerebral pathways comes a price. The more information that is processed, or lower the brains ability to filter out certain unwanted information, the greater the levels of perception - overload it you want to see it that way. The brain is forced to deal with this in one way or another, blurring the distinctions between realtity and the imagined.
If you are accoustomed to seeing thing that no one else see's anyway (for instance someone who see's patterns that are invisible to the rest) then how do you convince your own brain that something is delusion when all the evidense (as far as your cells are aware) is to the contrary. If you have the ability to understand people and to empathise, and do not have the ability to filter emotion and restrict how it affects you, surely it would make sense to develop multiple personalities so that the overload of feeling can be manageed effectively. If you are contantly aware of everything around you; how it fits together, how colour compliment (or not), how the negative space fits with the objects in a room, how the light reflects outwards from numerous surfaces... then surely it is understandable to develop a need for perfection and order.
Although what I've just said seems to point to distinct a "cause" and "effect" scenario... I don't think that this is the case. It is the fact that someone has a hightened or altered perception of this universe that allows them to ask the questions no body thinks of, see the answers that the world is blind to whlst simultaneously causing their brain to handle other information in a way which is completely alien to the rest of us. Delusional? Obsessive? Perfectionistic? Hyperactive? Socially inept? Insanity and genius do not so much come together... they are the two sides of one coin.
And along side both comes complete social exile.
No one likes to feel stupid. No one likes to read as though they were a book. No one likes to hold conversation with someone who points out their failings loudly. No one likes to have missed the *obvious* answer. No one likes to be second best. No one likes to associate with the delusional. No one likes to live with the obsessive. No one likes to work with someone who has to have things *right*. No one likes to share answers with someone who will question their every word. No one likes to spend a day with someone unafraid to ask the awkward/difficult/poignant questions....
And when you're living in a world that no one else seems to see and moreover no one elsee wants to see...
Well... I think we've all see what that leads to.
There *is* a reason why I don't watch those films... Except I know that I will always watch them. There is nothing more facinating that the human brain and social dynamics that are connected directly to how we each individually perceive the world. By what criteria do we judge insanity or genius or cruelty or ignorance or manipulation? Why do we categorise people and drug them to conform to out ways of thinking... When is this necesary? When is this wrong? What is malfunction of the brain and what is simply a way of dealing with an excess of inputs into on nervous system?
xXx
00:41 Posted in Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
03/16/2008
Given by my sister.... and better said by someone else....
Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her
by Christopher Brennan (1870-1932)
If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.
Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.
For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?
Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.
xXx
14:26 Posted in Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this
03/13/2008
Girly Post
Ok. I was good. I went to the gym. I did better than last time as well - 46 skips in a row as opposed to about 8 last time I tried. (Do you know how humiliating it is to have forgotten how to skip!). Then come back and here is the best part of the evening.
Long, very hot shower. Clean skin, clean hair, new pyjamas (even though I am going home tomorrow)... fairly clean sheets. My skin is now smooth and smells decidedly of hazelnut - moisturiser. I am curled up on the floor of my room in my duvet with a cup of tea chatting with people on msn and facebook and listening to Kate Rusby...
Sometime it is GREAT to be a girl!
xXx
22:57 Posted in Complete Random Junk! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Storytelling and Bach
Most of us spend our lives telling stories. Whether these stories are worth hearing (or even telling) is a completely different and highly contentious matter. Sometimes the stories we tell are true, often elaborated and exaggerated, rarely completely fictitious but always personal on some level or other. I can never work out if we only ever tell stories that have meaning for us or that the act of telling a story makes it a part of us regardless of any previous emotional involvement. We use stories to teach, to ease social situations, to explain, to pass the time, to amuse, to frighten, to threaten and to comfort. They permeate every aspect of our lives.
But just because we live a life almost dependent on storytelling does not mean we aren't highly selective about the stories we tell. One of the first lessons a child learns at school (if not before) is the necessity to judge an audience and gauge a level of propriety before telling their story. It may take them the rest of their life to acquire this required skill if they manage it all (and most appear not to), but I would argue that the necessity is something that becomes apparent very early in life.
I suppose that there are countless reasons for keeping a story to yourself. Many reasons which all, at some level or another, boil down to fear. Fear of hurting loved ones, fear of ridicule, fear of repercussions, fear of not being able to tell the story, fear that the story wont be appreciated. So many things can go wrong when we open our mouths. So many things *could* come out. So much damage *could* be done. Speaking is a risk. And yet we continue to tell our stories - judging the reward worth the danger.
How much is it our need to tell stories that makes us human?
I am listening to the Matthaus-Passion at the moment. I can't decide which I prefer out of this work and the B minor mass. They are both stunning. I love listening to modern music (folk, rock, metal, jazz) that stirs up emotion: determination, anger, pride, sardonic amusement. I love listening to gargantuan romantic symphonies that pick up your soul and carry you somewhere completely other. I love listening to Floyd, Bowie (on occasion), Runrig, Show of Hands, Brahms, Rossini, Rachmaninov, Cage, Messian, Tavener, Stravinski.... I love the feeling of being completely caught up in a performance or composition - the way the audience hold their breathe through the piece whethr it is 5 minutes or 45. {Although I wish they would hold it 5 seconds longer at the end of a movement and wait for the last note to die.}
There is something slightly different about the Baroque. It still takes you somewhere. But fo me it always seems less pushy or forceful in doing so. There is a cleaness in the part writing that is lost as soon as Beethoven and Wagner arrive. A purity in the harmony that vanishes with the turn of the 19th Century. And yet, there is none of the basic simplicity of the Classical era... none of the twee yet pretty classics that can be so easily summed up with the word "Mozart". There is something so delightful in the mathematical precision of the counterpoint - so many individual layers that tessellate so well. Dissonance that is prepared and resolved without fuss or glamour...
This music rarely stirs up violent emotion. it does not generally move me to tears or fill me with energy. But I love to listen to it. It calms me I suppose; order and beauty complimenting each other so well. Emotional, yes, but it almost more personal in its understatement (compared to Romantic expression). Whatever has happened that day to anger or hurt me, I can (if I think of it) put on the Trio Sonatas, Pergolesi Stabat Mater, Mattheus-Passion, Allegri, a Byrd mass... and my heartbeat with regulate itself, my breathing fall in sync with the pulse of the music. And I sit and listen. Immerse myself. And after a few minutes - 3, 5, 30, 90? - I get up and continue with the day, my thoughts clearer and my emotions less clouded.
xXx
09:19 Posted in Music , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this
03/11/2008
Strange
I slept well last night.
Well no, it wasn't sleeping well last night at the beginning. Woke up at 6, dozed off again and woke up again at 7. Got up. And am about to go to brekfast for the first time this side of half term. It is a very strange feeling. Even though I am still pondering too much about things that I really shouldn't be thinking about, I am not as scared as I was. Whilst it is true that the past jumps out to get you, it is also true thatyou can spend your life afraid of shadows.
Weeping may go on all night, but in the morning there is joy.
Hope?
Maybe we wont go that far yet.
But today I might tell a story.
xXx
07:37 Posted in Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
03/10/2008
Lets start this one again...
If you want to compare look here (12/02/2005) for the original... let's see what has changed.
Seven things to do before I die
Something I am proud of (and remember)
Play Stravinski's Rite of Spring
Travel the Silk Road
Have/build a boat
Be able to go back to Norway
Learn to think first
Dance properly again
Seven things I cannot do
Stay still
Turn off the *i-tunes* in my head
Easilt let go
Ignore the bite of idle curiosity
Dive (well... I am pysically able... I just can't do it)
Keep myself seperate from situations
Juggle (although I can almost contact juggle which is SOOO much cooler :P)
Seven things that attract me to my spouse:
No spouse! so we shall insert a *might* into that statement (or substitue and *a*)
Someone who is just a little bit crazy
Someone who'll let me run just as long as I let them run with me
Someone who understands that the entirety of the Brittish middle-class are there soley for my amusement!
Someone who will still surprise me after 25 years and then 50 and 75
Someone who can dance (Yes Steve I have *finally* openly conceded this point - happy?)
Someone who will keep me accountable
Someone who loves me (not just two or three aspects of my life)
*If I could love a man who would take m for a mere £5000 per annum, I should be very happy. But such a man would have to be insane and you know I could never love a man who was out of his wits* - Still got to love Austen and it is so true!
Seven things I say most often:
"heh"
"darling"
"fair enough"
"why"
"teehee"
"aww"
"evenin'"
Seven books (or series) I love:
Song of Songs
Deerskin
A Month in the Country (Thank you kit)
Momo
Watching the English
Winnie the Pooh
Persuasion or Jane Eyre
Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would watch over and over if I had the time)
A Long Engagement
The Counterfitters
Lord of War
Moulin Rouge
St Trinnians (Oh sooo TRUE!)
Spirited Away
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Seven people I want to join in, too (no pressure – if you hate this sort of thing just ignore it)
Em
Kit
Steve
Stuart
Kay
Chi
Anyone else who wants to
xXx
20:29 Posted in Complete Random Junk! , Fun | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this
~Then you reslise someone said it first....
"Ah!" cried Captain Harville, in a tone of strong feeling,
"if I could but make you comprehend what a man suffers when he takes
a last look at his wife and children, and watches the boat
that he has sent them off in, as long as it is in sight,
and then turns away and says, `God knows whether we ever meet again!'
And then, if I could convey to you the glow of his soul when he does
see them again; when, coming back after a twelvemonth's absence,
perhaps, and obliged to put into another port, he calculates how soon
it be possible to get them there, pretending to deceive himself,
and saying, `They cannot be here till such a day,' but all the while
hoping for them twelve hours sooner, and seeing them arrive at last,
as if Heaven had given them wings, by many hours sooner still!
If I could explain to you all this, and all that a man can bear and do,
and glories to do, for the sake of these treasures of his existence!
I speak, you know, only of such men as have hearts!" pressing his own
with emotion.
Austen
14:52 Posted in Literature | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
03/07/2008
My day...
8:15 - Wake up to the 5 minute bell, search room for black trousers (on floor of wardrobe) and Granta hoodie (can't manage to put on a shirt and jumper at that moment). Avoid looking at the mirror on the way out.
8:20 - Registration. Dull, I almost forget to answer my name. Write out exeat form for the weekend
8:30 - Shower. Decide I want culy hair today so brush it through early on and then leave it along. Check email - nothing lifechanging - and make my bed. Confirmwith Hsm that it is ok to miss some of my frees to go to the gym.
8:50 - Arrive at tutorial. Jayne is still off ill so Sue is even more chronically busy than usual. Receive hug and best wishes and then leave. Make way to Music School to do some Oboe. I go through all the scales (maj / mel / harm) that I got wrong yesterday, and some others. I must work omy tone, tuning and placement at the extremes of the instrument. i.e. my low Bb minors are awful and my Fsharp scales are just plain dodgy. Play through the study and prove I can do it. :D first time ever. Then work at several short phrases to adjust tuning and technique.
09:57 - Arrive to my session before Alex. Got very strange looks from Hall an Deveson whilst walking over to the spots hall in my kit, the Music Dept don't believe in execise (except Manty who is getting fit enough to climb Mont Blanc in a few years). Alex turns up and we go through my circuits and weights program. That man is a SADIST!! Lovely, brilliant and all manner of other nice things, but a sadist none-the-less. It's really just a simple circuit, short too (30-40mins), b I am not particularly fit and it is *hard*. The worst thing was that he made me compelte the entire thing just to prove I was capable of it; now I can't just turn up and say to myself "this is impossible". Nah he is a decent guy, and the program suits me well :D - even if I couldn't walk up stairs paritcularly well afterwards (don't even mention going down them!). Only once a week. I think I shall try to keep - endorphines are addictive don't'cha'know.
10:40 - Back in house, shower, drink quite a bit of water :P and get books for music
11:00 - Music lesson. Starts with a 15 minute argument. Hall has stolen Manty's stationary and so he is refusing to teach (we know where it is) but it is suggested that Manty steal Hall's coffee, chocolate, markbook and computer mouse as "leverage". Why does this department remind me of "Yes Minister"? We go through the Bach once again, I don't mind although I studied it quite thoroughly on my own to prepare for the Cambridge inteviews (essay funness). We also look through our chorales. Mine isn't too bad, once again I've played safe instead of going for the good marks. We will go through properly and work out *best answers* tomorow.
12:00 - Organ Practise. Finally get around to learning the 3rd page of the Debussy but I do not touch the Brahms. Sad really, but I don't think I can learn the Fugue in time for Sunday whereas I have a chance of learning the Debussy. Have inordinate quantities of fun playing the bass line VERY LOUD on the reeds! Also play "My Song is Love Unknown" and look over the last verse option (very good part writing and anything *but* Bach in style... might learn it). Struggle with '"Praise to the Holiest" - the parts cross excessively and there are quite a few suspended and yet un-tied notes which confused me for some reason. I need to do more practise. Once my oboe is out the way I will - playing for chapel next friday. Will be good. :D
13:00 - In payment rearranging Thursday's lesson to Friday, Deveson has agreed to cook us Bacon Butties for lunch. It is hunger lunch (school serves only soup and a slither of bread and puts the money saved towards the lenten appeal!) so excellent Norfolk home cured bacon is really a very preferable option :P
13:25 - choir supposedly. After saying hello to Rae and going through both ranting and some tango moves I catch up briefly with a few others and then excuse myself as the rehersal starts to go to an oboe lesson. The fact that I actually ended up sitting in the Kitchen, waiting for my teacher to arrive and singing to myself is irrelevent and rather sad. :P
13:45 - Oboe lesson. Play through the study again. It is so almost there, I just paniced a little at the start and fudged a few areas. At least it is in time now! The Saint-Sans is good (AT LAST) and the Handle... well it's still Baroque and it's still good but not the best piece ever written. I do like the second mov though, so much chromatitism it could almost be Bach in places. Have a rest and talk through the program for my recital. I'm thinking of doing the development of German Classical Oboe repetoire with the Handle Sonata (written whilst he was in Germany), the first movement of the Mozart Oboe Quartet and finally the Weber Oboe Concerto (or Shumann Romances). Would love to do something more modern but apart from the (strangely similar) Poulenc and Saint-Sans, I only have Hinderminth - it takes a while to learn a-tonal music properly!
Legs are now functional again
15:10 - After arranging to miss Wind Band (no lip after 2 hours playing and gym as well as a concert in the evening), I spend five minutes in house before wondering over to the Rugg for Biology. Today we had to write our arguments for or against the motion "Is it time to scrap creationism?". I have not pointed out that this is not strictly a motion. Or that no one is actually using creationism in its strict sense. Or that really he just wants an excuse to assert his views to his class.... I decided that I'd be nice. God knows why!! Anyway, I decided to take on the challenge and argue against the motion that was actually intended. The arguments are thus: 1. creationism (NOT fundamentalist creationism which is infact a minority in all faiths) does not seek to provide evidense or answers, but merely fill in the gaps where evidense fails us - as it continues to do even with today's technology. 2. We are actually steadily disproving the theory of evolution instead of proving it :P. 3. Society needs people to think differently and disagree otherwise all progress becomes stated and the system stagnates - it is the contest and the questions that make us seek answers. 4. Fundamentalist science is just as bad as fundamentalist religion. No one should be told what they have to believe - you can not, and should not try to, scrap a belief system. In a free society people should be entitled to *complete* eductation and then allowed to form their own views - however stupid anyone else might think them.
Still spent most of the lesson on facebook.
16:10 - Chapel. More dancing with Rae before it started... then chatting to Anna... then I fell asleep. Seriously! I actually have a completely blank period in my memory for most of the service.
16:50 - Went for a walk with Lucy and Wheatly. I think they are dredging the river at some points -the water level is incredibly low and if they aren't then this is very worrying for the summer. Anyway, was nice to walk over to the medows again. :D I always miss them in the winter. Still beautiful.
18:05 - dinner. Pizza, cumcumber and Ketchup.
18:30 - housecall and then return to my room to watch Labyrinth (Brilliant film - watch if you havn't already). Fall asleep a little but I am distracted by some rather interestng texts.
20:10 - find uniform
20:15 - arrive at concert.Play through with Manty. We *REALLY* need to get the middle sorted before Tue!
20:30 - concert starts. I play fourth. Probably the best performance I have ever done. :D :D :D (although Manty is still scared by the piano part :P) Only two *mistakes* that stuck out to me (not the audience) and they were just tone and pitching! :D Will listen through to it tomorrow, but I am happy with that! The rest of the soiree was up and down. The guitar ensembles all excellent, but many of the solo pieces were influnced by nerves - still good fun though.
21:15 - concert ends. Polite tete-a-tete with the audience... And then sat chatting to Faulkner, Christine and the Music Dept. - Mostly taking the mic out of anything that moved which was good fun. We are all lovely people really!
22:17 - I am slightly late for housecall - better than after the last concert I went to. I start sorting out my room, finish my film my film, write this and conveniently forget about my chemistry prep! (TOMORROW MORNING!!!!)
23:41 - I go to bed
xXx
23:37 Posted in Complete Random Junk! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
03/06/2008
A Post of Happy Things
- I have chosen my first option for University. I will accept the place at Girton, Cambridge. The decision has taken a while - even though I knew what it would be in the end (confusing eh?), but I needed to be sure that I was happy with it and I am. I loved the college the first time I saw it, the course is brilliant and opportunities to play are just silly really. But I have to say what clinched it was having access to The Round, The Reels Society... and all the other opportunities for dance. Oh, and the Library!!!! :P (But that is fa too geeky to write here :P)
- I have filled out the Sidmouth Stewarding Application form for Sidmouth. I will be attending, I will be camping, I will be dancing in the street in my bare bare feet (to coin a phrase) and in the ford, and in the sea, and around the Ham... I will be attending breakfast and cream tea workshops with rigorous regularity and I WILL BE HAVING FUN!
- I have almost finished sorting out all the paperwork that has ended up at school.... Not actually done much with it yet, but it is all in neat piles all over my bed - might sleep on the floor today :P
- I passed both timed swims. The air may have tasted of acidic smoke, I may have caughed all night, I may have been cold, I may have had a headache... but I PASSED THE TIMED SWIMS!!! I *Can* do it... and I am happy.
- I played the Albinoni Oboe duet with Chi yesterday - she playec flute :P It was so much fun. There is little better than playing with someone, particularly when that person actually wants to pkay and make music with you and so does communicate and put emotion into her playing. We'll learn it and see if we can get it recorded. :D Was great fun. Need to find some more now. Maybe one that is writted for oboe and flute.
- Got training program for the gym. Got to love Alex. He is so lovely. Anyway, been meaning to for ages - otherwise I just go along and run for far too long and then go home again. So getting a program working mostly on strength and flexibility (sailing and dancing). One hour core muslces, which is my favourite one because, even though it doesn't build up much of a sweat, you really feel like you've done something afterwards. Then another set of weights and funness and then one cardio and endurance set. 'Tis all good fun. :D But it is also very good to know what you are doing to your body when you exercise, how you might damage it and also how you can put it right again.
- It was sunny yesterday. However much I rant about my school,the capus is stunning on occasion (depends a lot on light levels). But at the moment the entrie deerpark is drowned in yellow daffodils or tiny blue flowers that I don't know the name of. Next time it is that lovely I shall go for a walk by the river - I've missed it this winter.
13:42 Posted in Complete Random Junk! , Fun , Life , Music | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this