food and frivolity

No matter what my situation, I find immense joy in food. North African Couscous Paella... today, the joy of my life.

Signs that I'm back in America: Celebrity boutique sues gossip magazine for not mentioning its name. Also, I can't find a proper power adapter for my printer. Signs that my flatmate is from SoCal: She subscribes to celeb gossip mags and has a real Louis Vutton purse and Coach iPod cover with separate leather Coach keychain attached.

Signs I'm screwed for tomorrow: Two Fulbright drafts to write and all the homework for my 9:30 doctoral seminar yet to be done. Small world, though: The professor is a major player in Zoe's field of research, the Alamire manuscripts. They'll meet for the first time at a European conference next month.

bell fever

Saw and played the slightly unconventional practice carillon for the first time, found all sorts of cool stuff -- but not so much that it'll be a full-time year-long job to archive it, as was the situation at Yale.

Also found dozens of names of former chimers. Welcome to the Friends of the Hopeman Memorial Carillon, buddies.

strip-mall shock

Biking is the solution to everything--if you have a bike. I'm not happy. I miss the freedom I had in the Low Countries to go wherever the hell I pleased (even if hours were limited). I desperately need a biking fix, and I really need exercise. I may be a city slicker, but I always had nature nearby, even in the Bay Area. I'm eating half as much as I used to and even feeling inclined to skip meals, something I would never have considered in Belgium. (Then again, the food's better in Belgium. But I'm talking about eating at home.) Thank you so much for sending Lucky out, Elvo. Lucky, please come home. Quickly.

high-speed deja vu

While I was on my way to the Fulbright meeting to discuss returning to the Low Countries with Professor Steingröver, a white sedan ran a red light and tried to run me over. Irony. The driver didn't slow down from his 30+ mph speed at all; I heard the screech of brakes when it was less than a foot away from me. I jumped back and it turned slightly. And thus I narrowly missed getting another titanium leg early in my latest leg-employing keyboard studies.

Welcome to Rochester, New York.

I can't get over the fact that I thought only, "What will I do to continue my organ studies?" when I saw the car just a couple feet away from me. Was that all I was thinking when the car impacted me in Mechelen? It would explain why I woke up screaming that the paramedics had to fix my femur because I had to play the carillon. I'm more tempted than ever to find someone who can help me revive my memory. But today's memory doesn't haunt me because I didn't get hit. Don't play with fire, tiff.

boxcutting

I never really understood the beauty of boxcutters until I used the new one from dad to cut open the plastic packaging of some coat hangers and nearly cut through the coat hangers.

Of course I didn't yoink this week's required reading from the office. And of course I practiced organ for the prescribed three to four hours per day after my first lesson, at which I was asked to sight-read the opening of a Bach trio sonata. And of course I didn't forget my pencil for the lesson, or accidentally bring the duet arrangement of said sonata.

tongue-twisting cycling mishap

This article was too good to squirrel away in the black blog:

Squirrel in spokes floors cycling opera singer

Just imagine an opera singer with a broken nose cursing in Finnish at a dead squirrel. I dare you.

sk8r shopping

Speaking of spending money, may I say that although after a year of European outdoor shopping (i.e. what inspired Newbury Street) I have developed a particular distaste for massive strip malls where you drive from one store to the next, I am in heaven when it comes to clothes shopping. No more stuffy high-heel boots and skirts that let the cold wind blow up your ... in the winter. American women prefer what feels comfortable, be it classy or ghetto, and it shows in the selection.

I randomly walked into the first store I saw in the mall (the shopping mall being but part of the massive strip mall) and realized I'd gone straight into the women's section of a skater store. I found the shoes of my dreams right away, although my size wasn't in stock -- thank goodness for Zappos. And I found the hats of my dreams right next to the shoe section. I scoured stores desperately for how many days in the Belgian rain and never found a proper hat?? Plus I got a sleek leather wallet (surfer style with "Nixon" disorientingly emblazoned on the back), which I'd also spent at least an hour searching for in Belgium, only to find endless girly wallets covered in buckles and straps that didn't do squat besides take up room on this overcrowded planet. I need as slim a wallet as possible to cram all my other crap into my bag.

I miss Europe desperately right now. At least I'm in non-girly-functional-comfortable-badass fashion heaven.

allergisch nog?

This morning I woke up early because of the sunlight, feeling as if I had a cold. My mouth was dry because I'd been breathing through it all night while my nose was completely stuffed up. I feel asleep gradually with aching muscles and sniffles, woke up again to JC's phone call, and drugged myself up to put on the semblance of being healthy. Fortunately, the green chilli pepper I grabbed off the Indian buffet and ate in one go cleared up my sinuses like no drug or sinus treatment ever had before, and I stayed that way for several hours. The experience also proved the absolute effectiveness of mango lassi for relieving the searing burn of extreme spice.

My parents have taken off towards Corning to find a hotel, and I am left here with the worst allergies I've endured since the last hayfever spring I spent on the East Coast. They have spent well over a thousand on moving me in, not to mention traveling here, and I can't help but feel guilty. I know the prices that seem so painful to me are not so bad to them, and I know their standards of living for themselves and therefore me are higher than my collegial ones. I also know that in the past year they have spent way less on me than they did when I was living with them or when I was in college, and hopefully the situation will remain that way. But I can't help but feel that I'm a bad person for letting them spend such money on me. Perhaps I have developed a desire to be independent that outpaces my financial ability to be so, but I don't trust myself to recognize this. Tell me from an outside perspective. Is it okay that they've helped me so much? Or should I have used the loans and the credit card?

I am still experiencing reverse culture shock. This morning someone honked outside and I ignored it, sure it wasn't the postman on Sunday. Impossible. The card stuck in the door said he'd just come by. Doh, USPS delivers on Sundays--for Global Express Mail.

Tonight I'm going to sleep in the living room, which has hardwood floors. If necessary, I will repeat this foolishness tomorrow. If my allergies get better, I'll know I need to yank out the carpet in my room. If they don't improve, then it's time to take the air mattress on the road and camp out in a friend's apartment to see if I'm allergic to 3 Grove Place or to Rochester, New York.

isn't it ironic?

I would h8 Dexia entirely if it weren't for the super nice young lady who works in the office and always remembers who I am and what I do and often sports cool necklaces. When I came in the day before I left asking to reregister with NetBanking, she manipulated the system in order to give me the nifty new bank card reader immediately and without my having to pay the 25 € fee (why the bank would make people pay so much just to use online banking is beyond me).

Now that I've got my desk and chair set up, I'm trying it out and it works like a charm. For the first time, I'm able to do all my banking business online. The software doesn't even work for the current version of IE (t3h 3vi1) for Mac, so I have to use Safari or Firefox, which is awesome. Dexia finally got something right. And of course, fate would have it that I no longer live in Belgium.

In other news, my formerly unfurnished room is finally starting to feel like home, thanks to my parents driving around everywhere and buying and assembling stuff with me. I don't know what I'd have done without them; moving into Mechelen was way easier because I could walk or bike to everything I needed, and anyhow the room was furnished. You ain't gonna walk to no strip mall here. I can even sleep on something besides air (mattress) tonight. My new bed came by delivery today, and it is sweeet. I have a headboard for the first time (also ironic--I've moved away from my parents' house). Hopefully this swanky bed will encourage me to sleep more. Now what will get me to start practicing the organ?

I'm still apprehensive about paying for my apartment. It's probably relatively expensive because of the proximity to campus and the fact that it has appliances that until now have been unheard-of luxuries for me, including a dishwasher, working oven (for the first time in my higher education career), and laundry machines. But yesterday I met a student renting for $650 a month. I can't stop wondering how all these in-debt graduate students shell out so much.

last-minute

I didn't realize it was gutsy to show up the night before orientation after traversing a six-hour time difference and sign the lease on your apartment an hour before the first mandatory meeting. But everybody else has been here for at least a week, if not several, and think I'm insane. Well, that's the first impression I generally aim for, so maybe this was all part of my grand plan.

The three-hour organizational meeting for ECMC blasted my self-confidence to smithereens, but one of the TAs had a word afterwards with me, reassuring me that everyone is only two hours ahead of their students during the first year. We're teaching labs during the first week of classes, and I'm sh%t scared. On the flip side, it's very possible that I'll be able to incorporate some carillon with tape into the 25th anniversary events. Sweetness and light.

They're insane, by the way, to expect us to come up with a faculty ALP recommendation in two weeks.

My apartment is more expensive than I expected, but somehow I'm here anyway, and I hope I can pay for it. If not, I'll just make up for it by not having a car and moving next year into a hovel. It's always possible to even these things out.

People are social here if you're social. I've met lots of new and a couple of vaguely familiar faces from America and abroad, I've two new flatmates who are very different from each other and whom I should get along with just fine, I've picked up a new sushi-making spelunking pre-med friend while waiting for chai at Java's (something that would rarely happen in stranger-shy Belgium), and... I'm still waiting to meet my teacher. A strange feeling to have no idea of what the professor you'll be working most closely with even looks like. So many people have come to study with specific teachers, and I've never met mine. Perhaps I'm naive. Perhaps I'm not far-sighted enough. Perhaps I'm dazzled by the Eastman name. Or maybe I'm brand-new to the instrument and humble enough to believe that anybody has a lot to teach me, so it doesn't really matter who I'm assigned to as long as I'm here.

"Don't study tonight. Studying for the theory placement test is like studying for a blood test. Get some sleep." If you're talking about the long run, there's truth to what the theory professor said, but as a voice DMA candidate quipped, "He underestimates our ability to cram."

It's time to cram.