i am more snowed in than i was previously

Last Thursday's "storm" here in Seattle wasn't such a big deal in terms of precipitation, but it made getting around the city really difficult. Saturday and Sunday's storms (notice the lack of quotation marks here) left us with probably 6" of snow on the ground, and it made getting around almost impossible. If you didn't have a car with 4wd and/or chains, you weren't going anywhere outside of walking/snowshoeing/cross-country skiing/sledding distance.

Thursday's "storm" may have caught us by surprise, but everyone was ready for this one. I went to the grocery store a block from my house to pick up some cleaning supplies on Saturday. The grocery store is a favorite of Microserfs, soccer moms, and foodies for whom money is no object. I frequent the store, despite being a poor grad student, because it's a block away. People normally come to this store to pick up just a few specialty ingredients for that night's dinner. When I went there on Saturday, I was surprised to see couples wandering around the store and filling multiple carts with a month's worth of groceries.

I had so much trouble getting out of my neighborhood after Thursday's "storm" that I knew getting to the airport yesterday was going to be quite the challenge. I had a gameplan: stay at a hotel Sunday night so I could take an airport shuttle to catch my 7 AM flight to Minneapolis. My only problem was getting to the hotel on Sunday. I called all the major cab companies - the ones who were open at all were not dispatching cars to my part of the city. The city suspended all bus routes that came even remotely close to my neighborhood. All of my friends with cars were either unable to get anywhere on the slippery roads or were out of town. I ended up calling a limo service to pick me up, and a lot of money later, I got to my hotel near the airport.

I had been compulsively checking the airport's website the night before I left to make sure my flight hadn't been canceled. The site suggested that everyone come at least two hours before their flight leaves, and to bring their own snacks because the airport stores were running out of everything. They also advised that everyone check their flight status before coming to the airport so they could try and limit the number of people who were stranded there by canceled flights. I checked the site again before I left the hotel at 4 AM, and my flight was still scheduled. By 4:30, I was in a mile-long line at the airport, and I learned my flight was canceled.

It's a pretty helpless feeling to be flying on your own, have your flight canceled, and to know that no airlines were going to fly out of there until at least 3 PM. I called Northwest while waiting for the ticketing counter to open. The nice woman I talked to rescheduled my flight, but the earliest flight she could find to Minneapolis was for the evening of Christmas. After scheduling that flight as a back-up, I called my parents to see if they could find an earlier flight online through a different airline. They were able to book me a flight for tonight, and helped me find another hotel for the night.

This hotel is much nicer than the one I was in Sunday night. I had a big suite, and I felt like it was sort of a waste to have all this room to myself. I called a couple of friends who had flights early this morning to see if they wanted to come stay here too. They did, along with their other roommate, and we had a blast. We went to the nearby mall and I found a swimming suit (in December!) to wear in the hotel's hot tub. We ate dinner out and then came back to the hotel to relax in the hot tub. We stayed up late chatting and having girly drinks. I'm bummed that I couldn't make it home yesterday, but it was really fun having a snowed-in slumber party.

I'm going to try the airport again in an hour or so. I hope the situation has improved since yesterday. I'm glad I got to get out of there after a few hours yesterday and get to a hotel. It was really sad seeing people who had changed their flights multiple times, all to no avail, and were wondering if they'd be home in time for Christmas. I hope the chaos is a little more under control now. It hasn't snowed since Sunday, and I'm guessing the airlines have received more de-icer after depleting their stock over the weekend. My friends who left this morning were able to get out, so I think I should be fine.

i am snowed in.

By two inches of snow.

After all my years of living in WI, I don't remember many times that I was truly snowed in - as in, unable to get anywhere. My school district was notorious for not calling snow days very often. I had jobs before I even had my license, so I always had places I needed to be. Thanks to vehicles with 4wd, I could usually get there. If I truly couldn't get up the hill in my parents' neighborhood, I could at least count on being able to get out the next day after everything had been plowed.

Over the past week, Seattle has been hit with two winter "storms." It snows a handful of times a winter here, but this time is unusual because we have precipitation. Usually the snow melts as soon as it hits the roads, and while we may have some precipitation on the grass, it melts the next day when the temperatures go up.

There are about two inches of precipitation in my neighborhood. The precip varies a lot in the nearby suburbs and even from neighborhood to neighborhood within the city. Seattle has some interesting weather patterns (usually variations on rain) because of its position near the ocean and between two mountain ranges. So while there isn't much snow here, I've heard there are about four or five inches of snow in West Seattle. For a city that's not used to precipitation, that's a lot of snow.

The problem isn't the snow, so much - it's that the snow keeps melting and re-freezing. This condition is common in WI, but the ice is sort of unusual here since it's not normally this cold. Seattle residents aren't used to snow and they definitely don't know anything about ice.

The bigger problem is the hills. I've never been to San Francisco, but I hear Seattle being compared to San Fran pretty often because of the hills. We have hills that stretch for blocks - and some of them are really, really steep. Even vehicles with 4wd and chains can't get up some of these hills. Some of the hills are especially tricky because they have a lot of traffic and some stoplights in the middle. The city has closed some hilly streets because people were having so many issues.

All of these problems have combined to make travel nearly impossible right now. That's not an exaggeration - everyone I talk to has some horror stories about trying to get around. Less than half of the city bus routes are operating right now. On Thursday, during the thick of the storm, lots of busy intersections got blocked by bendy buses that were stuck. Because of those problems, Metro has stopped using bendy buses on most routes. Some routes have been canceled, and nearly every route has been revised in some way. Normally taking a taxi would be an alternative to taking the bus, but even the taxi companies are closed. All of them. Some people are opting to drive, and I would too, but my ankle is still keeping me from driving.

For a city that depends heavily on buses, the cancellations and revisions of bus routes have been crippling. The city maintains a website with updated route information, but unfortunately, it's not always accurate. Despite checking that page before I left, I had three failed attempts over the past two days to get out of my neighborhood (one of those attempts involved walking to a bus stop ten blocks away - and walking the ten blocks home when I realized the bus wasn't going to come after all). I finally figured out that the bus six blocks uphill from my house is still using that stop. There is a bus stop a block from my house, but unfortunately the buses that use that stop have been canceled or re-routed.

I've found that the best way to get information on the revised routes is by word of mouth. I'm not the only one who had problems catching the bus - everyone I talked to today had horror stories about the bus routes. At every stop, people were volunteering whatever information they had on route revisions. The bus drivers were very helpful, and had a surprising amount of info on other route revisions. The buses were all packed, which is not surprising considering there were so few of them running. The bus drivers advised people to ignore the bus schedules, since nothing was running on time. Surprisingly, despite all the frustration, people were generally friendly today. All we could really do was shrug our shoulders and laugh about it.

It's easy for people to blame the bus system. I don't think that's really fair though. If the bus ran more routes, we would have more bendy buses getting stuck in intersections. I do wish Metro's website was more accurate, though. The department of transportation is also receiving a lot of blame for not keeping the roads clear. What people don't seem to realize is that the city just isn't prepared for snow like this. We have so many other pressing transportation needs, we simply don't have the money to buy and maintain more snow removal trucks and train people to use them. Seattle residents routinely underfund transportation and then complain about it.

I did finally get a bus downtown today. I wouldn't have left the house, but I was going stir-crazy from being stuck in the house for three days. I tried to go downtown for physical therapy yesterday morning and this morning, but as I said, those were failed attempts. I was disappointed that I couldn't get down there because I'm leaving town soon, so I won't be able to go to physical therapy again for a couple of weeks. After having so much trouble, I was determined to get out of the house, so I tried again, and successfully caught the bus at the top of the hill. I probably wouldn't have tried so hard, but I had to finish up my Christmas shopping.

While on the bus, I noticed we passed some horrified tourists who were taking a lot of photos. I turned to see what they were looking at, and saw two buses hanging over I-5. It was a scary sight - especially since buses freak me out anyway - but it put things in perspective. When dealing with buses, it's better to play it safe.





I took these photos from the bus I was riding. Luckily, nobody was seriously hurt. I'm still wondering why the bus driver decided to take that street. You can't tell from the photos, but the buses are at the bottom of a short, steep hill. There is a fork in the road at the bottom of the hill, and below the guardrail is an on-ramp to the interstate. It's a cobblestone road, and since it's not a major street, I'm sure the city hasn't spent much time trying to clear the ice.

Well, at least I got all my shopping done today. Unfortunately I had to do a lot of walking to and from revised bus routes, and I'm feeling it now. My ankle and heel are really sore. My knee, which has been giving me problems lately, is pretty swollen. Luckily I shouldn't need to go anywhere for the rest of the weekend, until I fly out on Monday. It's going to snow again tomorrow, so I'm prepared to stay put. After having so much trouble getting around today, I'm in no hurry to try it again tomorrow.

recommended reading

I recently picked up Learning to Breathe by a photojournalist named Alison Wright. While on assignment in Laos, she was riding on a bus that collided with a truck. Her injuries were quite severe, and in this book she writes about her recovery. I'm about halfway through. I thought it would be really hard for me to read this, and sometimes it is, but often I find myself laughing because I know exactly what she means. For instance, she talks about how talkative she was while on Percocet. I'm the same way. I think reading this has actually been a good experience for me so far. It reminds me how lucky I am, and it reminds me that I should make the most of every day I have. I might email her when I'm done reading the book, just to tell her my story, and to tell her how inspiring her story is to me.

My own recovery has been going okay, but I feel like I've slipped a little behind schedule. I use the term "schedule" loosely here, because I'm probably not the typical case. My ankle injuries were so extensive, it's no surprise my recovery is taking a little longer than expected. I was hoping I'd recover ahead of "schedule" since this isn't the first time I've had to recover from ankle surgery. I didn't realize my ankle would feel so differently after my doc pulled out a bunch of scar tissue. My ankle feels more unstable now, which makes sense since the scar tissue was sort of holding everything together. My ligaments probably aren't helping much - they were stretched when my foot was dislocated, and unfortunately ligaments don't really bounce back. I'll just have to work harder to build up all the little muscles that will make my ankle stable. I went for a short walk today without crutches or my aircast, which was a huge step (haha, no pun intended). Thanks to my ankle brace and my custom shoe insoles, my ankle wasn't going anywhere. It did feel a lot different than pre-surgery, though. I can tell that I have a lot more motion in the joint.

I'm getting ready to go to Jackson, WY for Thanksgiving to visit the family. Apparently it's going to take me three flights and over seven hours to get there. Luckily(?) I have lots of reading and writing to do, and I downloaded some good music to listen to - Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, Björk's Gling-Gló, and an album by one of UW's faculty members - Cuong Vu's Come Play With Me. I should have plenty to do...

Other than school, I don't have a whole lot going on right now. I did go to a holiday party at the Space Needle over the weekend, though. It was pretty amazing.

Politics aside, I think it's awesome to be able to say that we will see the first black president take office. It's also pretty amazing to think that our parents' generation lived through the Civil Rights movement and have now seen a black man elected president. In one generation.

We tend to hear people of that generation say that they remember the exact moment they heard of JFK's assassination, or the moon landing, or Nixon's resignation. It's unfortunate that many of those "I-remember-where-I-was-when" moments tend to follow shocking, horrible events. Our generation has a few of those - Columbine, September 11th, Katrina. But now we have this memory: the election of a black man to the highest political office in the country.

I was sitting on my fouton, with Austin on one side of me and a cat on the other. I was sipping red wine, and at 8:00 we flipped over to NBC and saw the announcement, followed by the frenzied celebration in Chicago. I have never felt so much pride in my country.

Where were you?

I had a dream last night that G was still alive, and he was getting ready to retire. I was at Parents' Night, watching the last show that the Cardinals would do under G's direction. I sat in the crowded bleachers with proud parents and my fellow alumni. It was a nice sunny day, and the crowd was in a celebratory mood. I think the show was a patriotic theme (but that may have been due to the fact that I had this dream on the eve of election day). Everyone in the crowd waved little red and gold flags, and at the end of the show, a huge banner was hung from one of the goal posts, wishing G a happy retirement.

As a parting gift to his students and former students, G told everyone that we could each ask him one question. It could be about anything - we could ask about his career, or seek advice, or whatever. We were to write a question on a piece of paper, and he would answer us later via email. I remember writing down a question, folding the paper, and putting it in the box along with the other scraps of paper. I just wish I could remember what I wrote...

o hai

Well, I suppose I should update. I'm spending a quiet evening at home, trying to get over a pesky cold. I am on both painkillers and cold meds right now - that's my disclaimer in case anything in this entry doesn't make sense.

This font looks really big on the text editor.

Hmm, what have I been up to lately... Well, the end of summer was a bit of a blur. Dan & Tenley came to visit, and I showed them around town. I win at sight-seeing tours. We had two or three days - we went to Pike's Place market, the aquarium, REI, Gasworks Park (we had a picnic), UW, Brouwer's, the shipyard in Ballard, Mr. Spots Chai House (so they could get the Seattle coffee shop experience), Archie McPhee's, the Ballard locks, and some other places. I can't remember everything now. Oh, we also saw Bon Iver on Capitol hill and had a beer with Sean before hand. Then I got to "work" at the merch booth for a song while Ben sat in with the band. That show was really crazy... It was the Saturday night over Labor Day weekend and the show was sold out. That was a week or two before they played on Conan.

After the whirlwind tour of Seattle, my parents joined up with us and we all (my parents, Danley, Austin, & I) went up to Whistler to hang out at the Four Seasons for a few days. Wow, what a beautiful drive. I took some photos but they didn't really do it justice. Anyway, it was a very relaxing trip.

A few days after we got home from BC, I had my ankle surgery. That was just over five weeks ago, and I still can't put any weight on it. I have an appointment with my doc in two weeks, and if all goes well, he'll tell me I can start putting weight on it. It's kind of hard to tell right now how well this surgery went. Since I can't put weight on it yet, I don't know if walking will be less painful than it was before the surgery. My doc said it should feel improved, but because the initial damage was so extensive, it's never going to feel "normal". On the bright side, my range of motion is already way better than it was pre-surgery!

Hmm, what else has happened... Oh, my roomies and I moved into a house that's a bit closer to school. We really like this house... it has a nice, open floor plan and a big huge deck. We even have a fenced-in back yard. When the weather is nice, the cats get to go play in the yard. Come visit!

Oh, and I just started year two of grad school. We start late here because we're on the quarter system. I've decided that the master's is a weird degree because it's only two years. Year one is like: here's grad school, write some papers. Year two: start contributing to the field, write a thesis. The thesis requirement here is a little different than at most other schools - instead of writing one thesis paper, we write three separate papers, each on a different topic. I think this method has its ups and downs... On one hand, I have to research, write about, and defend three separate topics. On the other hand, I won't have to do research on a single topic until I hate it.

Getting to and from school has been a bit of a challenge. According to the almighty Google, my bus stop is over half a mile away from the music building. I could take a second bus over to campus, but that seems like kind of a waste of time. I've been crutching that distance, carrying my school bag, several times a week. I'm going to get so buff. It's already getting easier, but it sucks when it's raining harder than the typical Seattle drizzle.

Well, I guess that's about it...

some news and lots of photos

I suppose it's about time for an update.

Life is good here, fairly slow, but I'm enjoying that while it lasts. I'm getting ready to move again, which is a pain in the butt. My roomies and I were going to stay here, but some stuff changed, so now we're probably just going to move. Oh well, maybe we'll end up in a more "happening" neighborhood. My current neighborhood is sweet, but it's got a very suburban feel, and I think we're all ready to be a little closer to everything. And it might be nice to have neighbors who aren't all 15 years older than us.

August will probably be pretty busy. I have three weddings to shoot, then I'm coming home for a bit, and then when I get back here I'll probably be getting ready to move. My family is coming to visit over Labor Day weekend. We're going to take a short trip up to Whistler (where the next winter Olympics are going to be held). I've actually never been to Canada, and Whistler is supposed to be pretty cool, so I'm excited for that. Then I'll be back in Seattle for a few days to unpack, and then I'm probably going to have ankle surgery. Oh, and sometime in there, Bon Iver is playing a show on Capitol Hill. Sweet.

So, surgery... After a few recent consultations with my doc, and spending a lot of time thinking about it, I'm going to have ankle surgery sometime soon. It's not scheduled yet, but I'm hoping for the first week of September. This is going to be a huge surgery, but if all goes as planned, it could be a big improvement. Basically, my doc is going to pack a bone graft into the hole/cyst/whatever in my ankle. He has to break a bone in order to get to the joint. I'll be in the hospital for couple of days. Blah. And then there's a super long recovery period. But if that's what it takes, then I'll deal with it. It still hurts constantly - to the point where I'm having trouble sleeping - so I think surgery is the logical next step.

In the meantime I'm trying to get out and enjoy the summer while it lasts. It seems like there are festivals of some sort going on every weekend here. A couple of weeks ago I went to Bite of Seattle at Seattle Center (where the Space Needle is) for some overpriced food and wine samples. Yesterday I went to a seafood festival for overpriced seafood. It was cool though because my friends and I wandered down to the shipyard where a bunch of the boats from Deadliest Catch are docked. Here are some photos (the first is a portable Pike's Place Market at Bite of Seattle; the rest are from yesterday):









As long as I'm posting photos, here are some others from a few weeks ago. I busted out my poor, neglected film camera to try out a technique called cross processing. It was the first time I'd done it, and I was happy with the results.














okbye.

summer break

Wow, I finally have some on my hands (maybe a little too much time), so I may as well update.

Year 1 is over. It totally flew by, probably because I'm on the quarter system. Each quarter is ten weeks long, so we do three terms in the length of two semesters (and take summer quarter off). I like that time goes by faster, but when it gets to the end of the term, I always wish I had more time to write papers. I think ten weeks just isn't enough time to do justice to topics like African rhythms or Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Oh well, I guess that's what theses and dissertations are for.

My impression of grad school so far: lots of reading, lots of waxing intellectual (or not) over rounds of beer, lots of writing papers. And lots of stupid jokes that nobody outside the field would understand. I think that pretty much sums it up.

Lots has happened over the past year, and I've changed a lot. I think I'll leave it at that.

Next year should be pretty cool. I'm living with a couple of roommates now, which is more fun, and my rent is much cheaper. Also, I'm in a WAY nicer neighborhood (no more crazies) and I'm a lot closer to school and everything else. I got a TA-ship for next year - only for one quarter, but that's better than no quarters. I'm excited to teach.

Now I'm in summer mode, which is strange. I've never spent a summer away from home. That makes it sound like I'm lonely, but that's not the case. I love it here - there are plenty of things to do, and I've got some good friends here. If the weather would just cooperate, it would be really nice. The only thing that kind of sucks right now is that I need to get a second job or something, because I feel kind of like a lazy bum.

Speaking of jobs, I just got one! I'll be working with a wedding photography studio. I'm not actually employed by the studio - their photographers all work on a contract basis. So it's like working gigs, not a regular job. That suits me just fine. I have five weddings lined up so far this summer. I did a test shoot with them (so I basically shadowed a couple of their photographers) and it was so much fun. Everyone is always so happy at weddings. The only thing I'm worried about is how my ankle will hold up. Wedding photography = lots of time spent on your feet. You can't really take regular breaks because you might miss something. I'll always be working with one or two other photographers, and I think I'll just have to tell them that I need to sit every now and then and take a break. It's embarrassing in this field to need to take time out, and I'm hoping I don't get harangued by any bridezillas for not taking photos 100% of the time I'm there. But in the end it's my paycheck, and I'm not the only photographer there, so I'm just going to have to take some breaks if I'm feeling too sore.

Speaking of my ankle, it looks like I won't be having surgery this summer after all. I went to the ankle doc today because my cortisone injection wore off. Did I mention I had another injection? I don't remember. Okay let me back up. I've been going to the doc fairly regularly since February or so because my ankle pain suddenly got a lot worse. He's had me trying lots of things - anti-inflammatories (which irritate my stomach so I had to give them up), an ankle brace, custom insoles, a cortisone injection, etc. I had a cortisone injection previously (maybe November) in the joint between my heel and my ankle bone. I didn't feel any difference from that one. So a couple of months ago my doc gave me another injection, this one in the joint between my ankle bone and shin bone. I told him I just needed something to get me through spring quarter, since I would be on my feet a lot playing percussion. This time the injection seemed to do the trick - it was far from perfect, but I could stand long enough to do what I needed to do.

So anyway, the injection wore off, which they have a tendency to do after a couple of months or so. I went back to see him today, and he said the clinic will do injections no more than three times a year, since they can be damaging to ligaments and cartilage. I have to wait a couple more months before I can have another. In the meantime, he told me there's nothing I can really do since we've already tried everything. He said that if he did surgery, it would make that joint feel better, and I would basically feel the way I did after the injection. Other parts of the ankle will still hurt, but most of the pain from that joint should go away for a while. The problem is that it's a huge surgery with a very long recovery time. He told me that for three months I wouldn't be able to drive, and I probably wouldn't feel up to doing anything other than basic daily activities. It would probably take me a year to fully recover. He said that since I'm relatively active now (though not nearly as active as I would like to be!), I should wait until the recovery period doesn't sound any worse than what I'm already experiencing.

It's nice to hear that surgery would probably make me feel better, but it's disheartening to know that I just have to wait until I'm completely miserable with pain. It's hard to accept that the joint probably isn't going to feel any better until I can get another injection in two months, and that probably won't last very long. It's also frustrating because I feel like I'm missing out on so much. I'm only 25, and there are so many things I can't do because of my ankle. Or I can do things, but then I can't walk the next day because I'm too stiff and sore. It could be worse, but I would love to just be able to go for a run or something. Or take wedding photos and not worry about anything other than taking the best photos I can.

Anyway, before this turns into a Debbie Downer post, I'll switch topics. If you've read any of my recent posts, you've probably seen something about the marimba piece "Tribeca Sunflower" that I was working on. It was written by Julie Spencer (who is very cool - check her out). There are two versions: a solo (which I performed in April) and a quartet (which I performed a couple of weeks ago with some of my fellow UW Percussion Ensemble members). The quartet version basically uses the solo part as the backbone, and the other marimbas have melodies and solos over it. Here's the recording from our concert:



P.S. let me know if that works - Ubuntu is telling me I need to download the plugin. I'll do it later...

quick update

I'm still here. Here's what's going on in my life, if anyone is interested:

- Moving this weekend (from a not-so-okay neighborhood to a nice, quiet area with a view of the Cascades)
- Percussion ensemble concert on Tuesday - I'm performing "Tribeca Sunflower" with my quartet, and a bunch of other stuff. I'm really excited for this concert.
- Presentation in cerealism class on Wednesday
- Cerealism paper is due next Friday - I'm (going to be) analyzing a Charles Wuorinen piece. It's a set of variations for bassoon, harp, and tympani. 12-tone row on tympani = best thing ever.
- Paper due for Bartok seminar... uh... sometime. I'm basically doing a critique of an analysis of the first movement of the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion.
- Hard drive (?) is dying. I hope it lives for two more weeks.
- Summer! ...sometime.

I'll be home for a couple weeks or so in August. Until then, I'll be enjoying summer here, where it's 75 degrees and sunny every day. No, it doesn't rain all the time - just all those times that aren't summer.

:)

cherry trees!

It stopped raining long enough yesterday for me to go to campus and take some photos. These were taken on the Liberal Arts Quad. The music and art buildings are part of the Quad, along with a bunch of other buildings. I think it's kind of funny that the cherry trees bloom during spring break, when the only people around are tourists. And me, I guess.

As always, click for biggies...

The pic below is (obviously) not a cherry tree. I don't know what kind of tree it is, but they're all over campus and they smell good.



I'm going to see Bon Iver tonight! Yay!

oh my god, free time

Wow, okay, that quarter is over. The past few weeks have been insane. I actually don't remember much from that period of time - it was all a blur of caffeine, painkillers, and homework. I had to do short presentations in three of my classes during the last week of school, and then there were the two papers and the project that needed to be done. Somehow I wrote both 15-page papers in a week. Remind me to not take that many credits ever again. I really liked my classes, but... there were just too many of them.

I think the worst part about the end of the quarter was that my ankle started acting up. It started bothering me more than usual, and continued to get worse every day. I have been taking painkillers much more often than usual. It's hard to concentrate on school work when I'm on painkillers, but it's harder to concentrate when I'm in pain. I finally decided it would be worth finding time to go to the ankle doc. He gave me an ankle brace and told me to call him if I wasn't feeling better in a week. The brace actually seemed to make it worse, so I called back and my doc put me on arthritis meds. The meds seem to be helping a bit, but it's still feeling pretty bad in general. I have to wait until late June/early July for the surgery. This quarter is going to be tough because I'll be playing lots of percussion, so I'll be on my feet a lot. Whatever....

Other than being overwhelmingly busy and having lots of ankle issues, I've actually been really happy lately. The weather is pretty nice, though Seattlites are all complaining about the "cold" (45-50 degree) weather. People here complain about the weather whenever it's not 75 degrees and sunny. Maybe they shouldn't have decided to live in Seattle. Or they should leave after the summer. Is it sad that I just realized that was a tangent, and wondered if I should put it in a footnote? Okay, anyway... The weather's nice, the cherry trees are just starting to blossom (expect pictures soon), and there are tourists everywhere. I went down to the market today, and it definitely had a different vibe than in the winter. Everyone was very upbeat. Probably because it wasn't raining.

I'm really excited because one of my friends from high school just moved here, and one of my friends from college will be visiting here briefly next week. Yay!

Well, I guess that's about it. You'd think I would have more to say after a month of no posts, but apparently not.

Edit: Okay, here are a couple photos from yesterday, the first day of spring. I went to the arboretum and only had a chance to snap a few photos before it started raining/hailing.

things i forgot to mention

- I have "Tribeca Sunflower" memorized! I don't even know how I found the time to do it, but yeah, I made it past that roadblock.

- I saw the U-Dub orchestra play the Mahler 1 with the Seattle Symphony over the weekend. It was really good, but if we had that many UWEC players on stage, it would have been twice as loud. ;)

- The display on my exercise bike doesn't work anymore. Apparently I wore it out. Sad...

quick update

Life has been busy. I just finished with a marathon week, and now I'm finding myself with a bit of breathing room before the end of the quarter. This week was super busy because I was preparing for a presentation I had to do yesterday in my hypermeter seminar. I presented on metrical dissonance in electronic dance music. I was nervous about it because I basically had to present and lead a discussion for two hours, but it went really well - I actually ran out of time before I got to everything I was going to talk about. I also had a percussion ensemble concert yesterday. I only played on one piece, but preparing for the concert took up any remaining free time that I'd had.

Now I just need to write two big papers: one for my history of theory seminar on a Persichetti book, and the other for that hypermeter seminar. I'm still not totally sure what to do for my hypermeter paper. In addition to the papers, I have to do a presentation in a couple of weeks for the history of theory seminar. Tonight, though, I'm taking a much-needed break from anything school-related.

Besides school, not much else is going on. The weather here has been really nice - upper 50s and sunny. I spent lots of time studying in the sun on my balcony over the past week.

My ankle is getting worse. I'm not really sure what's going on, but I need it fixed soon.

I thought I had more to say, but I guess not. Oh well, time for bed. I'm still worn out from yesterday...

weather forecast

(etc.)

blah blah blah

I spent the last week battling the cold from hell, along with everyone else in this city, apparently. I pretty much spent the entire week sleeping, which didn't leave much time for homework or practicing. I'm finally starting to get caught up.

I practiced today for the first time in probably two weeks. I thought I would be way behind on "Tribeca Sunflower" (marimba solo) since I haven't had the energy to even think about it for a while. It's a physically demanding piece, and I was worried that after taking such a long break, I'd be too out of shape to play it. Fortunately I made some pretty good progress on it today, and I'm excited about it again. I tend to forget that sometimes the best thing you can do while learning a piece is to walk away from it for a while.

In addition to falling behind in percussion, I'm a little behind in preparation for one of the seminars I'm taking. The class topic is hypermeter (broad topic, I know) and I have to present something in a couple of weeks. Since my presentation comes so close to the end of the quarter, I basically have to present on the same topic on which I'll write my final paper. That means I have to figure out a paper topic soon, but I guess that's okay. This way, I'll have more time to work on it than I would if I took more time deciding on a topic. Right now I'm reading this book about rhythm & meter in electronic dance music. I'm hoping to base my paper on some topic concerning hypermeter in electronic dance music, hip hop, and/or electronic percussive pop music (like Postal Service and Bjork). I still have pretty vague ideas about what to do. If anyone has any suggestions, please send them my way :)

I caught a couple of good concerts over the past few days - last week, I saw jazz trumpeter Cuong Vu, who just joined the jazz faculty here at U-Dub. He played a faculty recital, for which he was joined by his NY-based trio and guitarist Bill Fresell. The concert was absolutely amazing. I'm not even sure whether to classify Vu's music as jazz, rock, or trance. There was definitely some Radiohead influence in there too. In contrast to that concert, yesterday I saw a performance of Britten's War Requiem. I hadn't listened to the whole piece before - it was beautiful, especially the Libera Me. I'm hoping to see a few concerts coming up: next weekend, Arturo Sandoval is playing at a jazz club downtown. Also, I just found out that Bela Fleck & the Flecktones are playing with the Seattle Symphony later this month, and HERBIE HANCOCK is playing with the symphony in April! I love living in a big city.

I just re-read this post and realized I'm such a music geek.

In non-music-related news, my ankle has been feeling pretty ache-y lately. I guess that's not really news. I'm starting to try and plan out my summer, and I think I'll try and shoot for surgery in late June or early July. I'm dreading the surgery, but I think it will help.

I guess that's about it for now...

because everyone needs to cheer up

quick update on random things

Life is busy, but good.

Things I'm working on:
- searching for instances of metrical dissonance in electronica music, and working on a presentation/paper on this topic for my hypermeter seminar (if you have any ideas/examples, let me know)
- "Tribeca Sunflower," a marimba solo (which is currently kicking my butt) that I'm supposed to perform in three months
- arranging Lauridsen's setting of "O Magnuum Mysterium" for two marimbas - also to be performed in three months
- some other duet, also to be performed in three months

On top of all that percussion stuff, I also have a lot of post-tonal theory stuff. I'm taking three classes right now that deal with post-tonal theory. Oh, Schoenberg...

Classes are going well, though. I'm taking 14 credits this quarter, which is ridiculous (since 10 credits = full-time), but so far it's fine. I think my hypermeter seminar is my favorite class - it's totsweet*. This week, we spent most of the time sight-singing isorhythmic motets (which made me appreciate Dr. Peters even more, since I think I was the only one in the class who'd ever learned anything about isorhythmic motets in music history classes). Then we looked through an article that my prof wrote, which was published in Italian. This was bad news for me, since I don't know any Italian, but luckily one of the other first-years is fluent, so he helped the class with it. Anyway, it's an interesting seminar - I never know what to expect.

In other news, today I spent about three hours standing (split into two sessions of 1.5 hours) while doing percussion stuff. Then I spent 45 minutes on an elliptical machine. After that, I walked all around the U-District. None of these ideas were good. My ankle and knee hate me right now.

Other than my knee/ankle/leg stuff, physically I've been feeling pretty good lately. I've been pushing myself harder during my workouts, and it's starting to pay off - I feel like I have more energy. So I end up doing more things, and wear myself out, and by the end of the day I'm always exhausted. C'est la vie...

The weather has been a little chilly here, but definitely not "cold." It's funny to hear everyone complain about it. Thanks to the "cold," the skies have been really clear lately, and the mountain views from the city are amazing. I need to get out soon and take some photos. Here are some that I took at Magnuson Park a couple weeks ago (and haven't had a chance to post):








*"totsweet" was used in this post so I could join the trend of everyone saying it.

it's raining

Long time no write, I suppose.

This week, I have to:
- read 250 pages worth of articles (okay, 50 down, 200 to go)
- read two chapters of Rahn's Basic Atonal Theory (which is out of print, so I have to share the library's copy with two other people)
- read a book (I don't remember which one) for my hypermeter course
- read a chapter or two for atonal theory
- practice percussion so much that it doesn't seem like I didn't have a chance to practice over break
- physical therapy/working out
- other stuff that I'm forgetting
- oh yeah, regular meals

I finished my work for the day, and I have a few minutes before bed, so that's why I'm writing.

Christmas break was good. It was nice to be home, but at the same time, I missed Seattle. It's weird because this is the first time I've "gone away" for school, so going home is all different. I was home for three weeks, but it actually went by really fast. Now I'm back in Sea-town and back to school.

My ankle is appreciative of my return to a temperate climate. I was really sore while I was home, and I'm not even feeling much better now that I'm back here. I don't know if my ankle is still all screwed up from the climate change, or if it's just getting worse in general. I've started going to physical therapy again for the first time in a month, so hopefully that will help.

Anyone paying attention to the primaries? I've felt pretty apathetic for the past year or so when it comes to national politics, but I've surprised myself lately by getting interested again. I think I was disinterested because I wasn't very impressed by any of the front-runners, but inevitability has caused me to start to pay more attention to them. Anyway, I guess I'm not surprised that Obama and Hillary are neck-and-neck now. I bet Edwards will drop out soon, which is just fine by me. I think the dynamics of the Hillary campaign are really interesting right now, following her "meltdown." I think it's unfortunate that she's subjected to such a double-standard: she's been criticized all along for seeming too "cold" and "unemotional," but now that she's showing some emotion, she's accused of being "weak." There was an Edwards quote after that incident (that I don't think was included in the NY Times article) - he basically said that if she can't handle the campaign, she won't be able to handle the presidency. I wonder what the reaction had been had this "meltdown" come from Obama or Edwards. It makes me think the country isn't ready for a woman president. Anyway, judging by the NH primary, this incident seemed to have worked in her favor. Which makes people question whether she can cry her way into the White House. Whatever...

On a completely unrelated note (but something that has been on my mind lately): since I've spent some time away from home, it has given me some much-needed physical distance from the accident and all of the aftermath. Now that I've moved, I've had to tell the whole story to my friends, since nobody out here automatically knows what happened to me (unlike at home). Summing up the last two plus years of my life in that way has also seemed to give me some cognitive distance. All this distance has helped me to realize that I sort of got a second chance at life, and now I've decided that I want to come up with a list of things I want to accomplish in my lifetime. I haven't sat down and figured it all out yet, but I know I'd like to: get my PhD, climb a mountain, and see Italy, Ireland, and Japan. I expect the list to keep growing, because even as I accomplish these feats, I should always have more challenges waiting for me. :) Dear reader, if you were to make a list, what would you include?

quarter in review and photos galore

K, seriously, download Michael Nyman's Piano Concerto. I can't stop listening to it.

My paper is done, my Schenker project is done, and after a make-up lesson tomorrow, I'll be finished for the quarter. I'm curious to see how I did on the paper. I was really sick when I wrote most of it, so I felt the wording wasn't very good. Oh well.

After turning in my project today, I went out for coffee with one of the theory profs. It was the first time I'd had a chance to sit down and talk with her in a long time since I didn't have any classes with her this quarter. She asked me a lot of questions about how my first quarter was, and since then I've been in a reflective mood. I still feel a little intimidated by my peers sometimes - they're pretty intense - but I've learned so much this quarter. My prof asked if I've seen the other first-years much, and I laughed because we pretty much hang out every day. I think she was worried for my sake because I'm the only girl in the department. Eh, whatever.

I'm still trying to get used to the quarter system. I don't think I'll ever get used to it. Trying to adjust to a graduate workload at the same time makes things even weirder. I felt like the quarter started out pretty busy, then there was a long lull, and then suddenly I was in the library for hours every day. Despite being pretty busy the last couple of weeks, I still think I'm going to take one more class next quarter. I figure that, as long as I'm not TAing yet, I should try to get another class out of the way.

I think next quarter I'm going to take a couple of atonal theory classes and a seminar on hypermeter. I was considering taking a seminar on Copland instead of the hypermeter one (because I LOVE Copland), but the boys have pretty much talked me into taking the hypermeter. They all tell me that, as a percussionist, I'd be really good in the hypermeter seminar. Sounds fun.

The weather here is weird. It's been kind of hard getting into the Christmas spirit this year because it's so warm. Everyone complains that it's cold, and I laugh. It's usually around 40. Also, it rarely snows, though we did get some really wet snow a couple weeks ago. It turned into icky slush right away.

So... now that I'm not so busy with school, I've had some time to go out and take photos. Here are some from Volunteer Park last weekend:

(that one's up in the right corner of this page now, but I figured I'd post the biggie too)

I took these with my point & shoot yesterday while doing some Christmas shopping downtown.

Here's a photo of the Reading Room in Suzzallo. I figured I spend so much time there, I should probably take a photo.

study break/ADD

I'm in the library, and I need a break from working on this paper. I decided to do an analysis of Reich's Electric Counterpoint (just the third movement), focusing mainly on texture. That's the plan, anyway. I'm really sick and should probably be in bed. I've been stuck in the library all weekend. This isn't such a bad place to be stuck. I'm in the Reading Room of Suzzallo Library, which is a really pretty Gothic-style building. The Reading Room is a ridiculously long room with vaulted ceilings, and it looks like something out of Harry Potter. There are big Gothic chandeliers everywhere and stained-glass windows. Despite all the chandeliers, it's kind of dark in here, so all the tables have long library lamps on them. I keep coughing and sneezing, and it echoes really loud in here. It snowed here yesterday. Well, not in the Reading Room, but outside. Okay bye.