With all the posts about the geoblogosphere expanding and going "mainstream," I feel even more guilty about not posting anything in two weeks than I would have anyway. I'm good at the self-guilt-tripping thing! I am sorry for not having read your posts all that carefully in the past couple of weeks!
One major reason for this is that, since my last entry on 22 May, I have played in eight concerts: three of Renaissance music (Tuff Cookie, I'm not going to bring the school's viol on a cross country flight when I head east this summer, but maybe I will haul it to AGU!), two of all-Russian orchestral music, one of bluegrass, one of student compositions (a piece that I composed was also on this concert), and one of music from around the world (in which I played mariachi, bluegrass, and Javanese gamelan). I still have two more concerts left before the end of the quarter, and this list doesn't include the ones from earlier in May.
This is a lot. It is making me exhausted - I do, after all, have other school work! But I think that if this were last quarter, it would be burning me out a lot more than it is. I'm sure the reason I'm not spontaneously combusting in all of this is knowing that, even though the music department still owns me until next Monday, this stuff is no longer my job. Finding out that I did officially get in to the earth science department after waiting so long to hear relieved a lot of stress on its own, but I didn't expect it would make such a difference in my outlook toward the rest of music school. With the ensembles, I can really enjoy them again, since they have no bearing on my academic future or career. That my attitude toward some of the more tedious groups improved almost immediately upon my receiving that acceptance letter tells me even more that I've made the right choice about switching majors. I'll be learning tons of things about a science that's always fascinated me (both now, in school, and in the future, through research), all the while preventing myself from completely burning out on music. Win win!
(The geology classes have also gotten me off my butt and out of my apartment a lot this quarter. That does not happen with music classes. Getting outside every weekend and stomping around on desert mountains has also, I think, been wonderful for my sanity. And not to mention for getting rid of some of the weight that comes from being a music major who never gets outside.)
And that got pretty rambly. I guess that's what happens when I write 12:30 AM blog entries after long concerts. I promise I will write more about actual geological topics soon!
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3 comments:
Hey! That's ok! No one is obliged to blog and especially us Geo-people know that sometimes one cannot be on the computer because of field work, the study-load or other non-internet based activities. It's nice to let us know you are still doing well though! :-)
Yeah, it's good to hear from you (would like to hear the concerts, too!). You sure have been busy. What desert mountains have you been out in?
Wow, I am terrible at prompt comment responses! But the school year is over now, so I should get better.
To answer your question, Silver Fox, I spent six days in the Calico Mountains and four days in the San Bernardino Mountains for a field mapping class. Except for the one weekend where it was 105 degrees outside on both days, I thoroughly enjoyed the time out there.
And I will probably make a big concert post at some point, since I have sound files to back it up now.
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