many happy returns

I think back on all the times I visited a place and thought, "Oh well, I'll probably never see this or stay here again" -- the Calhoun common room and Longwood Gardens carillon in 2000, Mechelen and the Utrecht clothing store in 2003, Berkeley in 2004. Why do I keep returning? What's next?

Biking to the Berkeley Bowl at noon, I was struck by what a Californian day it was and how Californian my surroundings were, as both are aspects of life here I no longer take for granted. The dry heat, the open sky, the rolling golden hills framing it all -- I found myself experiencing the state as one thinks of it beyond the borders of that peculiar entity of San Francisco. Sitting in the garden each day eating lunch in the warm sun is perhaps the very best part of it.

The possibility has arisen that someone has been using my resume in order to pose as me for job interviews. For the record, I am not currently seeking a job in the Bay Area or New York, or in fact anywhere at this time.

You know your life is absurdly busy when you come to the realization that for two weeks you've desperately been wishing for the luxury of having the time to do your laundry.

things to see before i die, updated

• One of the regional 'P.O. Boxes' to which IRS tax forms are sent each April. Chip suggests that these repositories are actually warehouses marked by giant "PO Box" signs.
  
• Traveling gourmet dinner parties of strangers in the Bay Area
  
• The aurora borealis
  
• Will-o'-the-wisps
  
• Petra
  

Although I bought my "review German!" calendar during my senior year of college, I'm still going through it at the rate of two pages per week, and occasionally it will give me something incredibly appropriate. On Sunday when DST began, the calendar said "Wie spät ist es eigentlich?" The page also indicated "Daylight Savings Time Ends/Halloween." The unfortunate coincidence was that on the day I could try to see the sunset from the unlocked belfry, the sun was to set an hour later when the library was closing early for spring break. Sunset from Lake Ontario proved a lovely idea, though, and I'd like to learn more about the beautiful manor north of Kodak Park that offers no explanation by way of signage outside.

gasp for air

I will return to blogging. I swear. I just... need time to adjust to this semester's schedule. In the meantime, a photo I took over break.

And thank you for the item off my wish list. Unexpected but greatly appreciated. A good choice amongst many, and one that ultimately ties into a larger story.

To be continued...

sound, glorious sound!

It's sooo good to have my AKG K 301 headphones again. To be able to hear music for what it is! Music, glorious music. Music not being made by me (thank heavens). My life is complete.

Oh, and I'm officially 24 now. I didn't even notice until 20 minutes in. I decided earlier today that I'd been so traumatized by birthdays beginning with my 21st that I had developed an aversion to them rather than the apathy that sometimes develops because there are no landmark birthdays between 21 and 30.

People do remember although I tried to keep it under wraps. I had a birthday message from Belgium at precisely midnight CET, the loanable birthday banner moved mysteriously from Donna's bathroom door to my doorway, and the ECMC folks have even contrived to convince me to go to Matthew's with them tonight on account of it being the final ECMC staff meeting for the year. This is all very much appreciated, at least with what feeble capacity I have left.

The question is: Will I survive to see my 24 and 2/365th day? Monday isn't looking pretty, folks. Oh no it isn't. I wouldn't be unhappy if that cipher in Schmitt persisted all day. It was so loud that uniformed Jeffrey Leo (who didn't recognize me in my non-carillonista guise) came in just to inform me that the school was closing down for the dreaded 11th hour as I attempted to practice my improvisation, "Changes," by drowning out the cipher with deafening bell motifs.

dismay

Most or all of the boxes that I had sent via cargo post from the Netherlands were been sent back last week -- because they were about 100 grams too heavy each. They have been in shipment for over a month, and now they're returned to be repackaged and then sent for the same price? Not only does this mean that I don't receive my books, winter clothes, or AKG headphones until mid-December (I think Geert resent them without asking whether I wanted a different method of shipment), but the Dutch Post has to do twice the amount of work for only the price of a tiny extra package filled with a couple hundred grams from each box.

WTF?! Who the hell would weigh those packages and send every single one of them back on account of a hundred grams? When Elvo and I brought my things to the post, only one package was slightly overweight, so the postal worker made us repackage. I cannot imagine that every single box I sent via the Netherlands was overweight without the folks at the Middelburg post office noting it when making up the postage labels. Some godforsaken loser with nothing better to do tipped the scales in a psychotically compulsive double-check. I hope they crush their digits re-lifting my packages when they come around in a few more weeks. Anyone know of rates for sending rotten apples via general mail to the Netherlands postal headquarters?

So much for my excitement about the great rates of the Dutch post. I send things by reasonably priced standard airmail in Belgium and get them delivered via Express Mail on Sundays in America even before I have a chance to settle into my apartment. I send things via cheap low-profile no-brainer zeepost and boekenpost and the Dutch botch it up completely. At least the weather felt sorry for me today and decided not to snow on me. I doubt its mercy will hold up for long.

careening along

It took me a little over a month before I had a piece in performance-worthy condition at Mechelen. It was months before I had anything memorized. It's been two months in Rochester and I've got five pieces in rotation, amongst which a three-movement suite is now learned in full. I've performed a movement from another piece, and have two movements memorized.

And this is just business as usual. What a place, Eastman.

I could have cycled to the River Campus for my ring had I paused long enough in my dash from lesson to bus to realize that it was neither raining nor bitterly cold as it had been yesterday. Instead, I had to roll through a glorious fall day inside a crowded bus laden with my carillon and organ paraphernalia. The ring didn't sound too good; too much new repertoire, and I'm still figuring out how to make this damn carillon sound good. Tone was supposed to be one of my strong points. "The feminine touch," my European concert hosts sometimes marveled (erroneously). So why am I banging this poor thing to death?

For the first time, the elevator was broken when I was tried to catch the bus back, so I frantically figured out the alternate exit route and swung myself down innumerable short flights of stacks stairs. It's remarkable how similar the SML and Rush Rhees stacks are; if I was teleported randomly into either, I'd have difficulty deciding where I was unless I saw the windows (whether they were stained glass and what the view outside was). But the RRL stairs are definitely easier to dash down. Amusingly enough, the door that finally allowed my escape is the one that undergraduates take their crowbars and pickaxes to; the lock had nearly been wrenched out of place.

Learn to play, folks. Get a key!

Paul was kind enough to drive me to the Marketplace Mall and even to Lori's Natural Foods, where I stacked up on Rice Dream horchata, new-agey herbs and grains and whatnot. In return for ferrying me about, I got him stroopwafels. They were mediocre in comparison to echte Goudse stroopwafels, but he enjoyed them so much that I promised to bring some back the next time I swing through the Low Countries. In turn, he offered to bring some of those New Mexican hot peppers he's famed for cooking. Could be a fruitful exchange.

I returned from the mall with two beautiful sweaters (largely courtesy of my parents' winter survival grant), a police hat to complete last year's Halloween costume, Hot Topic legwarmers for who knows what, and my mobile account switched to my European GSM phone. Unfortunately, its tri-band feature only gives me the band that's less common in Rochacha, so we'll see how this whole cell saga works out.

news from home

Not really news, just things that were mailed to my Belgian address that Alice kindly forwarded at the expense of 10,95 €. Funny things, like free tickets to Club Illusion. Unexpected things, like Toerisme Limburg's tri-monthly recreational magazine. Dismaying things, like medical and Yale Club bills. Persuasive things, like a letter from The Friends of Music at Yale describing the extraordinary - yet at Yale, typical - musical life of the past year, not mentioning financial contributions yet simply enclosing a return envelope with levels from student ($10) to Patron ($1,000+). Nostalgic things, like an issue of Yale Alumni Magazine featuring Eero Saarinen, whose architecture I fell in love with just as he was being rediscovered, and the concert calendar of the Antwerpen Conservatorium.

And one of the biggest posters I've ever owned - for the next Type An Sich exhibition in Antwerpen (I never made it to any of the ones I was dying to attend) - although I don't remember subscribing to any mailing list. For free. The money that gets poured into culture in Flanders and the delightful things that come out of it! I may be at one of the best music schools in the world, but I still can't help but miss the cultural life of one little country.