sleepy

This morning someone busted one of my car windows and took some of my stuff. I'm really not happy about it, so I'm not going to write about it right now.

My assignment for everyone is to go download Michael Nyman's piano concerto, right meow. I stumbled across it today in my never-ending search for the perfect piece on which to write my paper. It's breathtaking. It's not the right piece for this assignment (too tonal), but I'm glad I found it anyway. If I'm ever in the position to play a piano concerto, I might have to do this one.

I might use Reich's The Desert Music for my paper. Or I might not, who knows.

Being home was nice. It's sad though to see some friendships growing sour (though thankfully none of my own). I guess you expect everything to stay the same while you're away. There probably should be a Garden State quote in there somewhere, but I'm too tired, and I think Zach Braff is kind of annoying.

In other news, I think my ankle is going to explode, and I seem to find the worst possible times to catch colds.

blah

I went to see my ankle doc a couple of days ago, and it was pretty much what I expected. He's recommending that I have surgery, and I think he's right. At this point, things are getting complicated, and I think it would probably be best to not go into a lot of medical details (since I don't totally understand it all anyway). I will say that evidently I have a bunch of arthritis in two different joints (above and below the ankle bone). The joints are eventually going to deteriorate to the point where I'll need a major surgery or two. In the meantime, my doc is trying everything he can to prolong the life of the joint(s).

Right now my doc and I are tentatively planning on doing surgery this summer. I don't think I could do it any sooner because it would be too hard to balance recovery with school. Surgery is never convenient - actually, it's pretty much the opposite of convenient - but it sucks even more when you're 1700 miles from home. I have to figure out how to do my laundry, take care of cats, etc. when I won't be able to put weight on my ankle for like six weeks. I'm sure my friends out here will help me out, but I hate having to rely on others too much. I'll probably come home for part of the recovery time, but then I'll be 1700 miles away from my doctor, which could also be a problem.

I've been pretty bummed out since the appointment because now I have a better understanding of how much damage my ankle sustained. For the past two years, I've been waiting to get "better". I knew I'd never be 100%, but I hoped at least that I'd wake up one morning and not hurt at all, at least for a little while. Now the odds of that happening look pretty slim. It's sad to think that my ankle is only going to get worse from here - it already hurts a lot, and it's keeping me from doing some things I'd like to do. It's hard to sit around while my friends go skiing/snowboarding, rock climbing, etc. I'm young and I should be able to do that stuff too. Hopefully the surgery will make it feel better for a while, but really it's a short-term solution.

On top of this new info, there's some other accident-related stuff that's causing some stress right now. I can't talk about it here, but ask me about it sometime.

Okay, so, yeah....... non-downer stuff....

One thing I'm super excited about right now: one of the percussion DMA students and I were chatting, and he encouraged me to start learning Julie Spencer's "Tribeca Sunflower". It's a marimba solo that was also transcribed for percussion ensemble (solo + accompaniment). It's a really tough piece, but it's one of those that everyone knows and wants to play someday. I don't know why I never thought of looking at it until now, but after that talk, I'm feeling inspired. I talked to my prof about the possibility of playing the ensemble version in the spring concert. He's all for it, and apparently he also wants me to do the solo version for a special marimba concert (also during spring quarter). I'm flattered that he asked me to be in the marimba concert, and I'm totally excited about this piece. I'm going to have to bust my butt to have it ready by then - it should be a good project for me. I've already started working on it.

Another thing I'm excited about: I'll be home late Wednesday night through early Monday morning. Yay!

One thing I'm not excited about: the 15-page-paper that's due in a few weeks. Oh well, time to start obsessing over Prokofiev... or Reich, I'm not really sure yet.... Or maybe Ives, that could be fun.

mostly music geek stuff

Yesterday I came across this interesting link (might be old news to some). It's interesting because it's basically a catalogue of important American post-tonal works, along with random factoids and the blogger's impressions of each work. The author doesn't say what his background is in music, but I'm guessing this is a hobby. While his comments on each piece seem to be restricted to what he likes and what he doesn't, some of the posted links and readers' comments are fascinating.

Speaking of music, this could turn out to be a very Brahms-ian weekend for me. One of my friends invited me to his orchestra concert tomorrow to see them play a Brahms piece, but I forgot which one. I also might go see the Seattle Symphony Orchestra a couple of times this weekend. They're doing two different concerts of all-Brahms: one concert features his Symphony No. 2 and Piano Concerto No. 1, and the other will be Symphony No. 4 and Piano Concerto No. 2. So yeah, lots of Brahms. The SSO does a neat thing called the Campus Club, where students can buy tickets for $10 each, and the fifth concert is free. Sweet.

Also speaking of music, I'm trying to decide what piece to choose for my final project in one of my seminars. The seminar is basically about developing systems to analyze pitch collection-centered (rather than tonal-centered) music. The final project is to write a 15-page analysis of a piece that fits the topic. I'm considering using Steve Reich's "Nagoya Marimbas." It's a pretty sweet minimalist piece for two marimbas. I'm not sure though if I'll be able to eke 15 pages of analysis out of a 5-minute marimba duet. My backup plan is Prokofiev's ballet "Scythian Suite," a piece I know fairly well since it was the basis of Menomonie's winter drumline show that I helped teach last spring.

Okay, enough music stuff...

Did I say I had an appointment with my ankle doctor today? I lied. I had to reschedule because my doctor wanted me to get my ankle all shot up with cortisone/anesthetic first, then wait a week or two before coming in to see him. I had the shot - it sucked a lot. I have an appointment with my doctor next week, and then he'll have a better idea if I need to have the surgery or not. At this point I think it depends on whether or not the cortisone shot is taking care of the pain (which it isn't so far). If the shot isn't helping, I think surgery is the next option.

Last week my physical therapists asked my doc to have the results of my CT scan & bone scan faxed to the PT office so we could look them over together. It was pretty much the same stuff that my doctor saw in the MRI - arthritis, cartilage tears, cyst, etc. Also I guess there are some bone spurs in there too. It's nice that my doc has more images now, so he should have a good idea of what all is going on.

Okay, 'night.

seattle notables

this is funny.

I've seen "GUY WITH TWO BULLDOGS" before, with one of the dogs carrying a water bottle.

some observations

- Washington drivers are a whole new kind of bad.

- Everyone here turns their heat up way, way too high. Really people, it's not cold.

- Bartenders mix gin sours really weird here - with super acidic/yucky sour mix, and garnished with a cherry. WTF?

- People outside of the Midwest don't know what polka music is.