Voidy conductors!
I feel so badass. Dan, Kristina, Jeremy, and I had gotten tickets for the farthest balcony seats in Segerstrom Hall in Orange County. Andre Watts and the grand piano looked mighty small from where we were. We spied some empty seats up in the first and second rows in the orchestra level, and threw around the idea of sneaking down there during intermission.
Dan finally said, "Aaaah you only live once" and Mission Get-Better-Seats was underway. I have no idea why the usher didn't notice four new people sitting in the second row, but we weren't stopped despite our conspicuous behavior. You know, looking around for ushers, standing near the seats we were planning to jack...But we were eye level with the double basses for the second half of the performance.
If we were watching the double bass players, anyway. Conductors are the most fun to watch, really, because they get all voidy. What's this word, you say? The
FAQ of the Figure Skating Universe webpage documents the history of the word "voidy" as such:
It stems from...watching an old documentary about (legendary ice dancers) Torvill and Dean where we peed ourselves laughing at the following quote from Chris (Dean), which he said, erm, very dramatically:
"....and suddenly, we found ourselves in this...hole...this huge, big VOID!! We could do anything we wanted to, our only limits were our own imagination!! It's like floating free, it's like being in outer space!!"
So we use the term "voidy" to describe anything in skating which is a drama fest a la Dean. You know the sort of thing: angsty expressions, hands outstretched, weird programs with weird music, skaters who clearly think they are skating as ar-TEESTES and creating an artsy masterpiece...it's all "voidy."
So all of the conductors I've ever encountered fall under the category of "voidy." Everything they do seems over-the-top and simply for show, but I can tell you (as a member of an ensemble) that part of it is the conductor trying to dissipate energy. If the conductor conducts like he's in a coma, the ensemble is going to respond accordingly, and play as if they are in a coma. If your conductor is waving his arms wildly, stamping his feet, and making funny faces, there's nothing you can do but channel that energy.
That still doesn't explain why most conductors have really long hair that bounces when they get all voidy...
I also hadn't realized how far away we were until I saw the conductor. From the boonies, his arms didn't match up with the tempo. It was like half an arm wave off. I was wondering how the orchestra coordinated that delay, since there usually is a split-second delay between the conductor's signal and its corresponding action in the ensemble. But..half an arm wave?! When we were up in the front, it made more sense. We were just really really really far away from the orchestra, and that's why the tempo didn't match the conducting, LOL...
Random quotes from tonight, mostly from Dan:
Dan decides to take a shower 13 minutes before we're supposed to meet at the bus:
B (6:02:33 PM): gotta shower/etc.
azncupycake18 (6:02:36 PM): o wow
azncupycake18 (6:02:40 PM): gogogogogogo!
B (6:02:43 PM): haha
B is away at 6:03:05 PM.
azncupycake18 (6:06:59 PM): hahaha
Auto response from B (6:06:59 PM): Proving to the world once again that I am its speediest showerer.
azncupycake18 (6:07:03 PM): if you say so..
B returned at 6:07:21 PM.
azncupycake18 (6:07:29 PM): O.O
B (6:07:29 PM): see?
azncupycake18 (6:07:31 PM): i am amazed
azncupycake18 (6:07:33 PM): haha
Dan, scolding me and Kristina for not waking him up when someone announced the lunar eclipse on the bus: It's not like I could go out and see the lunar eclipse tomorrow!
Dan: It's not like I'm wearing a corset..
Dan, taking off his shoes and putting his feet on the chair in front of him: Ahhh, much better!
Me:*looks down* Hah, your socks don't even match!
Dan: Yes, they do! *looks down* Oh, shit...
The conductor, before introducing the composer for one of their new pieces: Oh, and by the way...3-0.
Yup, glad to know that conductors of classical music keep up with baseball too...
Silly fashion fads...
Over fall break, I finally tried on "the best fitting pants in America" - the Editor pants from Express. At the time, Express wasn't having any sort of sale but my shopping buddies Michelle and Shana were off trying stuff on so I figured I might as well do the same since I was there. (I'd also never seen myself in pinstripe pants, and was curious.)
I'm normally a size 5-6 in pants because my pelvis is huge compared to the rest of my body (and I still have no waist - how stupid), but when I went into the dressing room to try on a 6, the saleslady took one look at me and said, "Oh, you aren't a size 6 in those. More like a 4" and went off to look for smaller sizes.
It has happened that people underestimate how big my hipbone is, because my pant size has been guessed at size 3, so I figured that it was the same thing again...
The saleslady was right. The 6
hung off me. I looked like a punk skateboarder, almost. She came back with two other pants and I tried one on without looking at the size. It fit okay, but it was definitely no miracle (and definitely not worth the $68 pricetag). Then after Shana asked what size it was, I looked at the tag.
Size 2. Jeezus! Talk about your vanity sizing..
*blinks*
My sleep schedule can NOT be any more screwed up this week. But at least I'm getting sleep....And it's only Monday! Hahahahahaha...
Birds!
Went to the Bernard Field Station to watch songbirds for my biology project for an hour.
Afterwards I checked out the Village Venture where I stopped by the Audobon Society stand and was face-to-face with a visually-impaired peregrine falcon (the fastest creature in the world with 200mph divebombs), a Harris hawk, a tiny burrowing owl, and a great horned owl.
I love birds. :) Don't think I could handle actually having one though - I hate to see them caged.
Didn't hurt that I went through the Rhino Records sales boxes and found the Star Wars soundtrack and a Vonda Shephard CD for cheap. W00t. It's been a good day.
Not so happy stuff
Vicky's "Surfer Boy" is dead. Unfortunately, she found out the same way that I found out about my pilot friend; namely, Googling around and coming across something random. (I can tell you, that's not a good way to find out about anything like that) But at least my friend isn't
dead. Yet...
I don't think I ever believe someone is dead when I've gotten used to hearing about them or seeing them around. Fellow Lynbrook grad Jeremy Cooner died in a car accident last year, and even though I really didn't know him at all, I was still saddened and shocked. I mean, I've always believed we will be able to somehow keep in touch (or meet again) with those we've said goodbye to, someday. That's probably why I didn't cry at high school graduation - I knew I'd probably see my classmates again.
But ya know, when they're dead, that's it. It's just impossible to imagine someone you saw alive, as...not alive. That you won't ever see them or hear from them again. I don't know. I've never been to a funeral, but it might actually hit home for me if I saw someone in a casket.
And like Vicky, I'm starting to regret not knowing some people as well as I should. Before it's too late.
Silly piggies...
I opened a box of cookies and they started squeaking at the noise of rustling plastic. I've never given them cookies before, and their hay/carrots/spinach never comes in plastic, so I really have no idea how they came to associate plastic rustling with foodstuffs. *sigh*
Oh. My. God.
So, Pomona is finally in
thefacebook.com. I believe a good hundred people have signed up already, and more will follow, as soon as they find out that the confirmation emails were filtered by the Pomona spam program...
But yes! It only inspired me to waste yet
more time looking for people I hadn't heard from in ages. Like, classmates from New Jersey, most of whom I hadn't seen since I moved to CA in 1997.
I specifically Googled someone's name, found a Rutgers University fraternity site, and deja vu-d on several names on the member list. So, naturally I went to the gallery to see if I knew any of the guys there.
And then I came across this:
I didn't recognize anyone at first, but after concentrating, it finally hit me.
OH. MY. GOD. The scary-pale guy on the left was the boy I had a crush on all throughout elementary school. I can't decide whether it's scarier that
- His ears still stick out
- He still makes that face
- I still recognize him while he's making that face
I believe that the guy on the right was a classmate too, and OHMYGOD what happened to both of them?! Reminds me of the time when I saw my 2nd grade tormentor bitch in middle school (after not bumping into her for a few years) and realized, with a great feeling of redemption, that she had fully developed into a middle school bitch. Huzzah.
*looks at frat boys again* I SOOOO did not miss out, man. *pats self on back*
The insanity of music
For those of you, including myself, who think playing classical music is hard enough (Rachmaninoff is a bridge between classical and semi-avant-garde, I guess...), you really ain't seen nothing yet. I've attended several piano concerts featuring modern music, and I can't even imagine having to read the notes that are written there, because it really sounds like the composers threw a bunch of random notes together in some random rhythm. But you
know it really can't be that haphazard and so the pianist must sit there for hours picking out notes one by one and then trying to figure out what sort of rhythm it is. (At least
I would. Certainly concert pianists are better sightreaders than I am, and I sightread pretty well..) It hurts my brain just thinking about it.
Gayle took advantage of that statement during my piano lesson to show me how truly frightening modern music looks like on paper. Her concert on November 6 with flute, cello, violin, and clarinet, features music by George Crumb, who was inspired by
humpback whale songs to write a nocturne (or was it an etude?). That in itself should be eyebrow-raising, but here's the cool part: Gayle will have little random interludes where she sticks her hand into the bowels of the piano to hold down strings, pluck strings, bang strings with paperclips, put a piece of glass onto the strings to get a rattle, etc. There's even a point where she takes a chisel to a string. A
chisel. (I commented that that couldn't be good for the piano. She agreed with me. Maybe George Crumb has a Liszt complex)
But the sheet music was truly terrifying. I've seen musical pit orchestra scores, and I've played in a pit orchestra, but this Crumb stuff was NOTHING like that. Random measures were strewn around the page (with no measure numbers), and the measures weren't even connected. Instead, there were little notes and arrows pointing every which way. In certain parts, the piano system goes around in a little circle that takes up half the page. Like, all of the bars and the notes go around in a full circle instead of a line. I forgot to look if the notes are written upside down on the bottom, but in any case...oddities!
My next question was: Did the music publishers actually have to acquire a special program or some machine to print out this circular music? *scratches head*
But yes! I will be there on November 6, to watch Gayle and her box of piano-tinkering toys. It will be beyond entertaining. Also, because that humpback whale piece calls for "three masked players." Heeeeeeee.
I am not a loser
I can say that I attended a Mudd foam party. Yay! It was actually a lot of fun - friendly outgoing drunk people are so entertaining. Especially when you're the only sober one of the bunch. Hee. Shana got tipsy after downing a Jello shot and a Cosmopolitan and taking sips of people's drinks. I had had enough after half of a Jello shot and a sip of Shana's Cosmopolitan. I just don't enjoy alcohol; I can smell it if it's in something and actually drinking it is just ugh. The only thing I semi-enjoy is Starbucks Frappucino with kahlua, and only if it has a little bit of kahlua in it. Ah well.
Randomly funny quotes from the past couple of days:
This one wins the prize for most befuddling out of context - Dan at lab: Yeah, blowing up is SO overrated...
Shana and Michelle note how Professor Yao is so tall - Michelle said she was probably from northern China: So, it's like North = Yao Ming. South = Shana.
And then Shana (who's barely five feet tall) flipped her off. Har.
This is a rather old one, but I thought it funny anyway:
sleepy: prince william looks more and more british
sleepy: every time i check
azncupycake18: dude he was SO cute when he was like...14!
sleepy: lol
azncupycake18: now he's...iono...
azncupycake18: meh
sleepy: british!
azncupycake18: hahaha
azncupycake18: what was he before?!
sleepy: storybookish
azncupycake18: hahahahh
azncupycake18: like that exists on a map...
sleepy: i didn't say it had to be on a map :-P
A happy rock I am
Some time ago Vicky described me as "a happy rock." Well, rather, the context was this:
sleepy: we're all to a certain degree bright young people with a relative guarantee of a sucessful future
sleepy: i haven't the energy to pull people along with me [to a bright future, I think she meant]
sleepy: i can try dragging cindy
sleepy: and steph
sleepy: and you, but you're like a rock :-P
sleepy: *tugtug* why won't you move!
azncupycake18: hahahah
azncupycake18: rock? what kind of rock?
sleepy: stuck to bottom kind of rock
sleepy: poke some places, it will go
sleepy: like tkd
sleepy: poke other places...it won't.
sleepy: but you're a happy rock
sleepy: i shall try not to poke you too much
I see how I'm like a rock. I'm a happy-go-lucky individual, steadfastly refusing to push myself to be
the best in all that I do. I'm satisfied just being mediocre.
I guess it's just the story of my college life. At Lynbrook, I never had to try very hard, and I was very happy that we didn't have "+"'s or "-"'s appearing on our transcripts. I'd do just enough to get an A-, which would appear as an A. Lil sis thought this system was idiotic, since she got legitimate A's and slackers like me would have the same GPA as she did. Har.
My mother always said that no matter how smart you are, there will always be someone smarter than you. Methinks she was trying to keep us grounded after we were accepted into the gifted program in elementary school. But I guess I took it too literally and relegated myself to mediocrity instead. I do believe (unlike Matt did - until recently, heh) that some people are inherently more intelligent than others. We all have our talents, and some people just sort through information suited for schoolwork better than the average population. The rest of us will just have to work 24/7 in order to match the already-intelligent.
I've already realized that I'm not one of the lucky elite, and I've also realized that I don't have the drive to work hard enough to get up there with them. This may or may not be a good thing. On the one hand, I'm never stressed. I may procrastinate like nobody you've ever seen, but you won't see me having a nervous breakdown. On the other hand, my future may not be so bright because I don't have that kind of competitive
oomph that the most financially successful members of society do. The question is: do I really want to be one of them - working my nonexistent tail off to ensure success/wealth/fame, only to have more responsibility dumped onto my shoulders, resulting in having to put in even more hours? I think not. Yet another thing I inherited from my mother and not my workaholic I-love-CS sooo-much-I-even-read-it-
for-fun father...
Or maybe I just haven't found my driving force yet. A number of years ago, it was skating. I couldn't wait to get to the rink some days. I'm not sure where that passion has gone. It's probably dispersed into a million other things I halfheartedly attempt but never give my all into.
I have a friend who's a pilot, and I saw him a new light after I discovered he was involved in a flying accident that killed the pilot in the other plane. It wasn't exactly that that changed my opinion of him. Rather, it was the fact that this took place a year after another accident he was in that killed his father. Then I started wondering, "What is inside a person that drives him to continue doing something even when death has come so close?" Whatever it is, I certainly don't have it.
But I look up at the sky. I see how it's so blue, so vast, so beautiful, so...inviting. And it starts to make sense.
Maybe I'll find my driving force soon. My rock will find its current and become a salmon, bent on reaching its river. When I put a finger to a piano key, a skate blade to ice, a pencil to paper, I come a little closer to understanding. Just a little.
