Carmina Burana

The big work that the OU School of Music has put on this semester is Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. It's been such an exciting production! The School of Dance has collaborated with us to create a ballet to go along with the music. It's such a cool opportunity to be a musician for a ballet! It's so fascinating to see the extra dimension that the dancers bring to the music. I've loved being a part of this production, and I hope I get to continue to do more collaborative works with people from other fields.

Yesterday was pretty cool, except...

Isn't that exciting? I broke my phone.

It still works, I just get little glass shards in my finger every now and then when I text people.

But whatever. Yesterday was still pretty awesome. I played Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Shooting nazi zombies: surprisingly therapeutic.

Also, the Mu chapter of ΦMA (a.k.a., my chapter of AWESOME) went to a retirement home and sang for old folks. They liked us, and they want us back.

Hooray!

Positivity

So, I tend to get stressed out as the end of the semester approaches. Stressed-out me sometimes goes to unhealthy places. In an attempt to combat that tendency, I'm going to make a list of things that make me happy.

• The classical station on the radio. It's very reassuring to get into my car and hear music that I can simply listen to without analyzing the chord progression; memorizing the name of the composer/genre/century of composition to be produced upon hearing the music later; worrying about practicing said music to get it to a performance-acceptable level; or worrying about the time that I could spend doing other, more productive things, because I'm driving and I need to not try to get things done while I drive because that leads to bad things happening.
• Cold-ish weather. I really like wearing coats and jackets and sweaters, and this time of year is perfect for doing that because it's cold enough to justify wearing sweaters and jackets, but not so cold that I can't bear to be outside.
• Watching my classmates excel. I'm thinking about one person in particular right now, but it can apply to a number of situations. This particular individual is such a dynamic, engaging teacher whenever I see her in front of a group of people, that it makes me feel really excited for her future students. Even if I don't want to be an education major anymore, I'm really overjoyed that she's doing so well with this track.
• The internship that I'm going to apply for. It could very well be one of the coolest opportunities that I have available to me right now. NBC would be such a fantastic place to work... I would have the opportunity to live in a metropolitan area like I dream of, and actually perhaps be able to afford to do so one day.
• Seeing the people that I care about and love. Spending time with them. When they are distressed, seeing them overcome that distress.
• Catlett Assassins. This game is going to bring so much paranoid joy to my daily routine :)

That's enough for right now.

I intend to write a novel this summer.

Bad Timing

Welcome to Catlettworld! Today, we're going to be administering two mid-term exams in two separate courses. Both courses are required for you to graduate with your music degree, so everyone taking these exams is REALLY stressed out. That's why everyone looks so high-strung.

Oh, I hope you don't mind, but we're going to tune the organ today. You know, the one that you can hear throughout nearly all the hallways? That one. So when you hear two notes REALLY close to each other, but not QUITE there... that's what's going on there.

Hmm. It seems that the students scheduled to take the midterms don't appreciate the organ being tuned... I wonder why that is?

I totally stole this idea from my new friend James C, who posted it on his blog first.