stuff

I guess it's been a little while since I wrote last. It's fall here now, though you wouldn't know by looking at the trees. It was kind of weird how fast the weather changed, though. I'm used to WI where it will be 75 degrees one day, then 45 degrees the next, then 80 degrees. At least then you sort of have a warning that the warm days aren't going to last much longer. Here, I woke up one day last week, and it was fall. Oh well...

Here are some of the things I've been up to since I wrote last:

I went to the Redhook brewery with Scott & Kelli. We did the "brewery tour", which was light on the tour, and heavy on the samples. It was a good way to spend $1. After that, we went back to their condo and ate some venison hot dogs. It was a good ol' WI-style evening.

Last week I had to go to school and do assessment tests. Music grad students always have to take placement tests before school starts, to see if we need any "refresher" courses. I guess there's no more fitting way to start grad school than to have a day full of mind-numbing tests. I think I did way better on the history portion than on the theory, which is kind of silly since I'm there for theory. The history test was so easy though - we had to listen to two pieces (for which we had copies of the scores), and then we had to pick one and write an essay about what time period it's from and how we came to that conclusion. We could only write one page, which was kind of tricky. I spent an hour and 45 minutes writing a one-page essay on sonata-allegro form. Fun stuff. Unfortunately the theory tests weren't so straightforward. It's been a while since I've done harmonic dictation, learned how a German sixth chord is resolved, or thought about tone rows. I think if I'd taken the test after my sophomore year in college, I actually would have done a lot better. Oh well, it's over, and I think I did okay overall.

The one nice thing about testing was that I got to meet all my new classmates (and commiserate with them afterwards about the tests). I was a little intimidated to find out how many of them came from Ivy-league schools, and also how many of them were offered scholarships and TA-ships here at the UW. It made me appreciate how good a school UWEC is, though, if I was admitted here along with the Ivy-leaguers. Also, it surprised me how many of them complained about not learning much in their freshman/sophomore theory courses, because they had bad teachers or TAs. I think UWEC's got some pretty good profs. Anyway, it would have been nice to be offered a TA-ship here, but after listening to some of my peers complain about their schedules for this quarter, I'm kind of glad that I don't have to worry about that right away.

Anyway, I'm having a pretty relaxing final weekend of "summer". Yesterday I went out with Scott and Kelli to the Fremont Oktoberfest. It was pretty awesome, aside from waiting in lines all night. There were probably like 30 different micro brews on tap - it was crazy.

In other news... Physical therapy has been going alright, but I kind of feel like I haven't made much progress lately. My ankle has been bothering me a lot more now that the weather is colder. It's hard to walk in the mornings and evenings - it's really annoying. My knee pain doesn't seem to be getting much better, but at least I think it's stopped getting worse. My therapists have told me to back off on certain exercises, so that's probably helping. I have to deal with a deep-tissue massage on my quads every time I go to PT now, and it pretty much sucks. After one PT session last week, my muscles cramped up and it felt like a charlie horse. My leg was all bruised the next day. My therapists have backed off on it a bit since then. It's still no fun though. Last time, I forgot to take a painkiller before going in. Whoops, I won't make that mistake again...

I can't believe it's almost that time of year again. It doesn't feel like it's been two years, but at the same time, it feels like it's been forever. I ride a city bus to and from school, and last week when I got on the bus, I had a brief flashback. It was really weird and I don't know what triggered it - something about looking toward the front of the bus. Normally I'm okay with city buses because they look different on the inside, but apparently it still bugs me to be on any sort of bus. It's too bad parking on campus is so expensive. Oh well. I think I was just out of it since I had just spent like eight hours doing assessment tests.

On a lighter note, here are some pictures I've taken over the past week.

Carkeek Park

Discovery Park

weekend and stuff

My weekend was pretty nice. I spent Saturday with a couple of friends - we drove up north through the Cascades and bought some fresh peaches and apple cider. We stopped and did a short hike through Deception Falls, which was pretty. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me... I spent most of Sunday relaxing and reading some of Harry Potter (yes, I finally started the last book). Sunday night, one of my friends helped me obtain a free TV, and then I grilled us some salmon with peach chipotle salsa. Yum.

I made myself take it kind of easy this weekend because the side of my knee is starting to bother me a lot again. I mentioned it to one of my physical therapists last Friday, because I noticed it getting worse Thursday night. It swelled up and felt squishy. When I pushed on it, it kind of looked like poking a water bed. My therapist seemed concerned but she said it was just swollen. So I took it easy over the weekend... I went back to PT today (or by now I guess it was yesterday). I had the other therapist, and I mentioned that it was still bothering me. She did a bit of deep tissue massage on my quads and realized that my lateral quads are REALLY tight. She spent about 10 minutes massaging my thigh, and it was ridiculously painful. My thigh has been really tender to the touch ever since I broke my femur (which effectively ripped up all the muscles). So yeah, not fun. She told me I'd feel fine once she stopped massaging, but when she stopped, the pain continued. It hurt pretty bad for the rest of the appointment, even after icing it. It still hurts a lot. I hope it'll start feeling better once the irritation from the massage wears off. I'm a little worried because it feels about as bad as it did when it was at its worst, and then I had to pretty much stop doing any activity for a while to get the pain/irritation back under control. My therapist said she thinks it hurts so much because there are so many factors involved - my quads are tight, my hamstrings are tight, my IT band is tight, my kneecap doesn't move correctly, my tibia doesn't rotate like it should (as she discovered today), my fibula doesn't move, and I have craploads of scar tissue in that area. How frustrating...

Oh, and you know you're in Seattle when you go to your PT appointment and one of the other patients in the gym is a member of a famous band. I probably shouldn't say what band, but it starts with "sh" and rhymes with "pins".

In other news, tomorrow (er, today I guess), I have an advising appointment. I hope I'll be able to kind of figure out what to do with my schedule. I guess people usually don't have their schedules sorted out until after the first week of classes, but hopefully after this appointment I'll have a better idea of what's going on. It's kind of annoying that I don't know my schedule yet, because I'm trying to figure out when I can plan a trip home.

I'm not looking forward to placement tests. For those of you who haven't had the joy of studying for them, it's basically a bunch of theory & history tests to make sure students don't need any "refresher" courses before starting grad level work. It wouldn't be the end of the world if I had to take a refresher course, but it would suck to pay for a class that I've already taken and audit it. I've never been very good at history, so I've been spending most of my time studying that. I'm not going to stress too much about theory, but I think it would be sort of embarrassing if I had to take undergrad-level theory as a theory grad student.

I guess that's about it for now.

RIP Pavarotti...

weekend, PT, etc.

I hope everyone had a fun Labor Day weekend! I got together with Ben on Saturday, who was on the coast for a quick visit to see his parents in Oregon. He came up to Seattle and we went down to the market and did other touristy things. I had so much fun with him, but it really made me realize how much I miss all my friends.

After Ben left on Sunday, I decided it would be a good idea to go for a hike through Discovery Park. My physical therapists had recommended doing the loop trail, so I decided to check it out. I figured I'd start the hike and then turn around when I started feeling sore. Unfortunately by the time I started getting really sore, I was over halfway through the loop, so I just finished it out. I ended up hiking for over two hours. I was in so much pain by the time I got home, I pretty much spent the rest of the day taking painkillers and icing everything. It was a nice hike though - the weather was great, and it wasn't too crowded. Next time I'll have to bring my camera (and maybe not hike so far).

I spent most of Monday relaxing and doing stuff around the apartment, since I was still pretty sore from the day before. I did head over to West Seattle to see downtown from Alki Beach, which was kind of neat. Here's a pic from there:


Today I had physical therapy. It's been going pretty well, but today was just painful. I was sore to begin with because of the weather (we actually had a thunderstorm here last night, believe it or not). And I was probably still a little stiff from the hike I took on Sunday. Anyway, PT today consisted of lots of pushing on lots of sore spots - which is what they usually do, but today it was worse than usual. But we discovered that I have more bones that aren't moving - now it's my fibula and some little bone in my foot. Add those to the list, I guess.

The past couple of times I've gone to PT, they taped my knee. I guess it's a technique which helps the kneecap to stay in the proper alignment. They literally just move the kneecap over and put tape on it to keep it there. The last time they did it, it didn't hurt too much, and it seemed to give me some relief over the next couple of days (while the tape was still on). Today though, I had the other therapist, and she wasn't quite as gentle with it. She taped it a lot tighter, which I suppose is probably a good thing, but it hurt a lot when she did it. In retrospect I probably should have taken a painkiller before going to PT today.

Anyway, here are some photos I took tonight from Carkeek Park (overlooking Puget Sound and the Olympics when they're not hiding):