eponymous_rose | Entries tagged with violin

Now, because I've friended quite a few new people in the last few days (*waves*), and possibly also because I love being all meta, I'm gonna write up a bit of an update on what's going in IN ZEE MIND OF ME. In other words, this is my blog: the abridged version, for those of you who'd rather not sort through the mess.

TV-Announcer voice: Previously, on

eponymous_rose:

( Stuff was done! )

(Gosh, this post was easy to tag. :D)

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Location: condo
Current Music: "The Next Life"

Not a lot. I've been ~~hardly working~~ working hard (I've actually eaten supper at work two days in a row), but there's nobody in the office. Um. That's weird. I think one guy is on holidays. One girl, I know, always works from home. Oh, and the other guy finished his thesis and is just waiting on some professors' comments! It's still odd, though, to come into work and not see anyone all day. I sort of feel like they must all be out having some sort of wild weather party, and I missed the invitation. Heehee.

I got some stuff accomplished in terms of writing! I dunno why I stopped for so long, there.

This epic!fic I'm writing is gonna be a change for me - I really do like what you can do with one-shots, in terms of tight narrative and wonky symbolic tenses and backwards timelines. Planning something this long feels weird, and even a little bit aimless, but I'm slowly wrapping my brain around it. But it's fun, and I can bring in recurring motifs and whatnot. Yay!

I've come up with a really twisted idea for my ficathon entry. Woohoo!

I picked up a few music books from the library, pieces by composers I don't typically play - Liszt and Clementi. I love Clementi's sonatas because they feel so relaxed and cheerful after all the Beethoven o' doom I've been playing lately; also, I can actually sight-read them with zero difficulty, which makes me happy. Liszt? I'm still a little hesitant. I love the way he plays with different tempos (Au lac de Wallenstadt), but... *shrugs* Dunno. I've only played a couple of pieces, so maybe he'll grow on me.

I need to pull out my Debussy now I've got a real piano to work with. Wonder if I can still play "Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum" up to speed? Hee.

Tomorrow's gonna be a long day - I'll be sneaking away from work for a couple of hours to practice piano and violin, then sneaking back and working like mad, and then I'll be leaving early to go for celebratory scholarship dinner with the roommates, and then I'll be running straight from there to my violin lesson. At which point, I suspect, I'll have fallen asleep. How awkward.

(Harry Potter's out soon! I must use my Shakespeare-shouting-"Expelliarmus!" mood as an homage. :D)

ETA: I'm now going to listen to "The Last". And give myself freakin' nightmares. Whee! :D

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: condo
Current Music: a Mozart piano concerto - number 17, possibly.

Well, it's been about, oh, forever since I updated. So I decided to do it right, with numbered lists and musical accompaniment and tapdancing elephants and whatnot. (Because, really, who doesn't include tap-dancing elephants in their livejournal posts nowadays?) Also, I've friended a few more people and this would probably be a good chance to let them know what they're getting into.

Okay. Where to start. Um.

( Really, it's not that exciting. Really. )

I have way too much energy today! The obvious solution is to buy a bunch of candy on the way home. *nodnod*

Current Mood: quixotic
Current Location: condo
Current Music: me... whistling? Oh dear.

Ah, but that's all fixed now! Away from the parents' house and its so-so internet for the next three weeks, and the cold has (mostly) turned tail and fled!

( Cut to spare flists my rambling... )

After some considerable technical difficulties involving my iPod (we're talking five consecutive hours of trolling online forums for any bit of help with my multiplying predicaments), I wound up deleting my 1,000+ songs accidentally-on-purpose. Spring cleaning! So now I'm entirely without music. 100% music-free. This is not a good thing to be.

My request, then, is for anyone and everyone to comment with any and all recommendations for music! It can be a band name, a song title, an album title, a genre, or something else entirely! Don't look back at my other music and try to figure out what sort of stuff I like - I love it all! The ridiculous, the divine, the imitative, the tuneless, the melodious, the rhythmic, the stupid, the brilliant, and um, everything in between! Throw out some ideas - I'm going nuts over here! :D

Current Mood: weird
Current Location: work
Current Music: you tell me!

Oh. The solution to all my LJ-related troubles is apparently to post from work. Heehee!

Well! What's new? Not a lot, really. Busy, busy week/weekend - on Saturday, I went to zee mall and bought a whole lot of nothing in favour of wandering around in the AC. In the evening, there was an excellent gaming session (me? a geek? whatever gave you that idea?). I'm a big fan of all sorts of role-playing games, but this one took the cake - it's not based on battles. Instead of warriors, you've got 'investigators', real people trying to solve supernatural mysteries. It's insanely fun, needless to say, especially when it's set on campus and the Big Bad is the concertmaster of the symphony orchestra gone insane ~~but everyone's too busy trying to get the absent-minded professor to his meeting about coffee machines to care~~. Huzzah!

Sunday was a lot of sitting-around-and-going-for-ice-cream-ness. Yup, heat wave's still on. Five consecutive days at or above 30 degrees (that's, um, eighties or something for Fahrenheit. I dunno.) isn't unheard of, but it's sort of rare hereabouts. Seems like nothing compared to the heat in Germany last time I was there (high forties, no AC - the fridge couldn't even keep stuff cool, and only hot water ran from the tap!), but it's annoying enough that I'm looking forward to the cooler weather beginning tomorrow. Oh! And we had a thunderstorm! Well, kind of. It was heat lightning, anyway, and I would've stopped to look at it, if it weren't for the fact that I was acting like an imbecile and walking home at three in the morning through deserted streets. Gah. Apparently, staying up late puts my sanity at risk. Good to know.

I then had violin and Torchwood, and it was generally a lot of fun, though apparently I need to buy a new bow ASAP. *grumbles*

Tonight? Going to grandparents' place to play piano/entertain/get food/mooch a ride to my parents' place on Thursday. Tomorrow? Fencing. Wednesday? Further violinning. And on Thursday, I'm going back to my parents' place for my brother's year-end choir concert. And then there will be sleeping all weekend. Oh yes.

Also: latest Doctor Who episode? Let's just say I loved it so much that I'm actually gonna write out a coherent and extremely long-winded review at the earliest opportunity. Too many echoes to ignore.

Current Mood: silly
Current Location: work

Aww... no violin tonight. Can't blame my intrepid instructor for that, though - if I had a terrible headache, the last thing I'd want to hear would be a beginner sawing away at a violin. Of course, that's probably one of the last things I'd like to hear, period. Right up there with fingernails against the chalkboard. Eergh. *wince*

Alas, it meant a bit of a disappointing evening, but that's all right. More violinning to come on the weekend! Huzzah! (And then, of course, I'll be resisting the urge to pull the puppy-dog eyes and the "is it can be Torchwood and homemade ice cream tiem nao plz". Hopefully, I won't be resisting too hard.)

It's dementedly nice and summery outside, which is excellent until I try to get to sleep. I've had my window open and blinds shut all day today, and my little desktop thermometer (hush, I'm a weather nerd) puts the room at over 27 degrees (that's low 80s Fahrenheit). Ick. Shame the typical climate doesn't make AC a viable investment.

On the plus side, though, I'll sleep anywhere.

Uh. Yeah. Right. Ignore the double-entendre. *waggles eyebrows*

Current Mood: disappointed
Current Location: condo
Current Music: the wind in the, um, mountain ash

Yay! Another meme, this one stolen from

megoobie. Because I like books, too.

As always, this is personal preference, so I'm probably gonna disagree with a bunch of folks out there. (/disclaimer)

In the list of books below, bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, ~~cross out~~ the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of...

( I need to read more. I really do. )

My practice room/lunchtime hangout was locked yesterday. Hope it was an oversight and not a permanent thing, or I'll be forced to play violin in the hallway. And nobody wants that!

Current Mood: hyper
Current Location: work

Had a spectacular geek-out tonight with my violin instructor - I wanted to duck out of watching the American Idol finale with warring roommates, he wanted to avoid making an appearance at karaoke night. Thus, we made our respective excuses and went to his place to watch Torchwood and play the Wii (which I'd never done before, making it that much more amusing until I started beating him at tennis).

He owns an ice cream machine and knows how to make candy.

Good times were had by all!

It's nice to know I've got somewhere to hang out when I'm fed up with roommates and/or feeling geeky. Also: having a new geek!buddy is all kinds of awesome. (Plus: next week, we begin the accompanist work. Dynamic duo? Quite possibly!)

Roommates have decreed that food is to be purchased separately, henceforth. 'sall good, I felt horribly awkward coming home after work and eating their leftovers. Only problem - they've got access to a car and I don't. *wince* Light food, then. Easy to carry the ten blocks from Safeway. Right.

Except this decree comes into effect on Monday. And I'm out of town from tomorrow 'til then. *wince* I guess I'll leave work early and go shopping.

Wish everything didn't have to go through back channels, is all. Attempting honest and open communication in a house of girls is immensely painful.

On the plus side, I'll get to eat what I want. I think that's a plus. Maybe. Another step toward total independence, in any case.

Violin instructor's looking for a roommate. The part of me that doesn't love my current roommates to death was sorely tempted to take him up on his offer. His girlfriend and my sometime-boyfriend probably wouldn't approve, though. Heehee.

Current Mood: frustrated
Current Location: condo

Phew. What a lunch break.

Decided to dash off to the public library downtown over lunch (via the subway - hooray! I'm such a little kid when it comes to trains.), then spent an inordinate amount of time trying to decipher their CD-cataloguing system, which turned out not to correspond with the system used on their website. Eventually, I just sort of gave up and left empty-handed.

On the way back to work, I noticed an advertisement for the bus line I take to travel to my parents' house. "Oh-ho!" thought I, "and here I am with no more tickets!" So I got off early, ran over to the depot, and waited half an hour for the lady at the counter to figure out how to get a pack of tickets ready for me.

Once I had those in hand, I trudged back through the rain to the subway and managed to get back on campus without further incident. I then snatched up some food, grabbed my violin, and brazened my way into the Education-students-only practice rooms (important lesson - if you smile and wave to strangers, they'll generally assume you're meant to be there). What followed was a full hour of screechy, shaky "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". I managed to get the hiccups halfway through (and, while "Twinkle Twinkle *hic*bangtwang" is pretty catchy, it's just not the same) and had to escape in search of water. By the time I returned, of course, my room had been taken, so I had to sneak around and find another one. I then very cleverly slammed my finger in the door - fortunately, it didn't much hamper the Schubert sonata I played (on the piano, mind) to boost my self-esteem.

Phew. Now I get to sit around, listen to music, and make graphs for the next few hours. Huzzah!

(No, I'm not being sarcastic. That's the scary part. I loves me some graphs.)

Really, I just wanted an excuse to use my mood theme again, because "rushed" is so dang amusing. Heehee!

Current Mood: rushed
Current Location: work
Current Music: Spoon

"Would you mind not standing on my chest? My hat's on fire."

I managed to play Mary Had a Little Lamb on the violin today. Huzzah!

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: condo
Current Music: Doctor Who

First lesson was fantabulous today! Fortunately, instructor was smart enough to suggest we go for supper at the mall on campus beforehand so as to get all of the chattiness out of our systems.

And there was chattiness. Turns out he's a total new!Who fanboy (I recommended Four to him), a Whedon fan, veddy into Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams and all was good. He later lent me seven novels from his "library", with the promise of more to come once I'd finished these. (!!)

The lesson itself was excellent - turns out I taught myself all right using the internet. That is to say, I could hold the bow after only ten minutes of patient instruction. We screeched our way through the G scale, and he told me that since I have such an extensive musical background, he'll expect me to pick it up much faster. In fact, he assigned that I teach myself "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in the key of G as homework - and work out the A scale. Apparently I have a good ear. *winces* This sounds like hard work. But fun!

I then displayed my piano skillz on the horribly out-of-tune piano and he somehow decided that I was an acceptable accompanist. Looks like I'll be playing at a big concert some time this winter. *shivers*

It looks like I'll be able to fudge my way through the tutoring-vector-algebra bit. Phew. (I very cleverly sold the textbook back last year and have no other material on the subject. Urgh.)

Summer = on track. The superstitious bit of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop. The not-so-suspicious bit of me is contemplating various ways to hit the superstitious bit of me with heavy objects.

Also: I finished the four months' worth of work my supervisor laid out for me. He's away until Monday. I guess I'll just keep prettifying the Excel spreadsheet. By the time he sees it, it'll be sparkling!

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: condo
Current Music: Who soundtrack

I got an e-mail from somebody who saw one of my many (well, three) ads posted around campus - he's interested in teaching me the violin over the summer!

The catch? He's a fairly well-known composer hereabouts. I was expecting, y'know, some undergrad in music who wanted to gain some experience. I don't know if he'll go for the barter system I'm proposing, since I assume he knows his theory well enough not to need lessons from me.

Also: he's a fan of Terry Pratchett (judging by the fact that he wrote a whole comedy-opera about it).

What am I getting into?

Heeheehee. Who cares? I'm so excited (and I just can't hide it).

Also: Doctor Who = fantastic. Where's it been all my life? Oh, that's right. In Britain. *shakes fist*

Current Mood: dorky
Current Location: condo
Current Music: A garbage truck outside. Wait, why's there a garbage truck outside today?