Home!

After the past week, I really needed a break. Lucky for me, Thanksgiving break was conveniently timed.

I'm starting to have friends outside of the music school. Shocking, I know. But it seems that with every time a friend wants to hang out, the homework or performance or work has reached an unbearable level. It's not like I'd willingly give up ANY of my outside activities; Mu Phi Epsilon has been fantastic for me, computer science is the most fun version of frustration I can think of, and I love my job. I just keep offering to do things that will further my actual career...like play for the Opera Workshop or design websites. And then that whole "class" thing gets in the way. I'm starting to realise that if I didn't have class, maybe I'd be able to get all of my classwork done.

But anyway. In happier news, now I'm home! Home means family, dogs, PRACTICE TIME!, knitting, and just all-out chill time. I'm so much less stressed about juries and the third movement of the Vaughan Williams now. I feel like I'm connecting with music more. It's amazing what time off will do.

Time off also gives you time to pursue other things, like my all-time favourite I'm-frustrated-with-debugging-this-program-to-the-point-of-wanting-to-punch-babies hobby: knitting. This past day I have knit a row or two every time I couldn't figure out what was wrong with my computer science program. And surprisingly, the practiced hand movements and brain time-off really, really helps.

Because I live where it is cold, I am knitting warm things, like this hat:



And, because I have the problem of cold hands but also happen to need my fingertips to play the oboe...fingerless gloves. Fingers just get in the way...(what, nobody else has this problem?)





And I'm starting on another hat in the same pattern, but using the variegated yarn all the way up.



It's in progress.

You can tell how frustrated I've gotten with my computer by how much knitting I've done. Something to know: computer science frustration generates knitted items. Oboe frustration generates baked goods.

I really am turning into a matronly old lady.

Report for the past week:

Smallest number of hours slept: 5.5
Greatest number of hours slept: 9
Number of reeds made: 5
Number of reeds cracked: 3
Number of hours practiced: not nearly as many as I would have liked.
Number of breakdowns had: 0
Number of bitches cut: 0
Number of programs owned: 1
Number of careless mistakes with programming: 349587
Number of parents seen: 3000
Number of parents that were my own: 2
Amount of satisfaction gained from that: infinite.
Number of hours spent in rehearsal: 6
Number of other jobs taken on: 2
Number of hours spent at work: 5
Number of hours spent doing homework: too many.

Overall, successful. I was going to write a post earlier this week about how I drink coffee socially. You know, some people go for alcohol, some for cigarettes, I go for coffee. It's a very tasty vehicle for caffeine. Unfortunately, this is a double-edged sword; it also contains caffeine when you don't need it. Most people would tell me "just drink decaf." I don't know why, but this seems blasphemous to me. It just isn't right. It's not like I can taste caffeine or anything (at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if I could, though), but still. Coffee should be an untainted steaming liquid (unless iced, in which soy milk and sugar are acceptable).

I just capitalised Coffee, as if it were a deity. There you have it, I guess.

So. This week I actually went to bed before midnight for the first time since July. Even then, that was a special situation (no sleep the night before, flying home from Philadelphia from SIMF. I slept for 17 consecutive hours, going to bed at 6pm). I'm a bit proud of myself. I think it's what helped me not become sick with the Whalen Plague.

I am finally listening to my body. I am finally discovering that I have limits and that there is only so much I, as one person, can do within a day. I am also realising that I have enough major for two people.

I won a major victory this week as well. My college has decided to stop paying for outside hosting for organisations, favouring something called Web Profile Manager instead. As a computer science minor and a web programmer...this is frustrating. But I decided to give it a shot. The verdict: wow, that's ugly. I'd like to be able to add more than one picture on the home page...and any picture at all on subpages. Also...what is with this horribly ugly background? Yeah, I could change it with CSS, but then I'd want to change the layout. Oh come on, I can't even change the text size?!? And I can't change the XHTML...so WHERE am I supposed to put my < div > tags? You mean I can't lay this out in a logical format? And you mean I'm supposed to put up photo galleries one picture at a time? And that putting up six photos takes an hour? And that--and here's the kicker--we get 15MB of space?

You've got to be kidding me, right?

Nah, they were serious. I mean, WPM is great for people who want to do a simple layout and don't know web design. But if you know more than two things about computers OR good design, it's infuriating. So the webmasters of the other two music fraternities and I took matters into our own hands.

Soon, I will have hosting for my first REAL web design job. *squee!*

More awesomeness: I got chosen to play for the spring musical next semester! As much work as it will be, with 7-midnight dress rehearsals, it's going to be a BLAST. I love playing in pit orchestras. I love musical theatre. And that I get to play it? HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!

Next semester, I am going to be whelmed. Very, very whelmed.

Happy, but whelmed.

This is why coffee exists.