Saturday, June 27, 2009

A bunch of rants... Or is it a pack of rants?

So, it's once again weekend. Saturday, to be precise. Which in this household means chore time. Except I have a tendency not to do my chores. I'm amazed with how often I get away with this. Today I actually mended some socks (my main chore is mending clothes) and I'm in the process of tidying up my room. Anyone who's ever seen my room (and I mean ever) will know that this is a long and drawn out process. And the tidyness will not last long, once I've finished. Three days is all it takes for my room to look like an explosion hit it during a tornado.

Tomorrow I have work. It will be ok I guess. Necessary if I want some money. :) And I do want money. One thing I'm not looking forward to is the loop tape. This month's loop tape is actually not too horrible. Although I'm getting really really sick of seeing the Bride Wars trailer. Such a mediocre movie. It's got some rare funny bits but most of it is really condescending to women in general. The idea that two women would behave like that over something so trivial is just moronic.

So yeah, apart from that work generally isn't too bad. Sundays tend to be quiet which can get boring, but at least it's not all that stressful. Except for last Sunday. For some reason last Sunday was insanely busy. I barely had time to eat lunch. Anyway, so I need money because a) I'm trying to save some of the stuff and b) I saw some shoes I want. :D They're Scooter shoes. The style is called Newbury. I saw them in Emporio when I was catching up with a friend in the city and the size 5, which they actually had in store (it was even on the shelf) magically fit me! Here's a picture:


So I've decided if I manage to save up enough over the next few weeks I get to buy the shoes, if I don't I'll have to live without them. It's not like I really need them.

So apart from shoes I can't stop thinking about this guy I like. And it's really stupid because I need my brain for other things. It's like I'm incapable of really concentrating on anything because I'm always thinking about him. It's stupid. I don't even know if he likes me. Actually, he probably doesn't like me. If he did he'd ask me out, surely. So now I've decided to just enjoy being friends with him and if he likes me he can ask me out, if he doesn't we'll still be friends. And I have to stop obsessing!

Monday, June 22, 2009

Woo, holidays!

So now it's holidays. And still I'm busy. This week I'm taking it fairly easy with practise so far, although I really wanna get stuck in after Wednesday before WAYO rehearsals get frequent during the school holidays. Tomorrow I've got a viola lesson. Yay. Gotta get some help with my AYO excerpts. And I still haven't found the viola part for the Brahms. I think maybe I did accidentally return it to the library inside something else... I'll have to drop by the uni tomorrow on my way to the lesson (it's not really on the way...) and check again. I've looked before, but only briefly. And I'll ask at the WAAPA box office, although whoever's working will probably give me a look. It's the third time this semester I'll have asked the box office if someone handed in something by me... Last time someone had. Yay. My pencil case... I was so glad that it was there. I don't care much for the actual pencil case but some of the pens would be difficult to replace.

Then on Wednesday I'm catching up with one of my friends from high school in the city. That will be fun. I always enjoy chatting with her. Filling each other in on all the latest gossip. Usually we wander around for a bit and then get something to eat or a coffee or something. I'm really looking forward to it. We also plan to go out together sometime. Of course that's been in the works since we both turned 18 in year 12... We've had concrete plans twice so far, but both had to cancel once each... Maybe it will work out sometime this holiday? We'll see. I need some occasion to wear my awesome high heels. :D

Saturday, June 13, 2009

On the home stretch...

Nearly done with this semester of uni now....
I've only got one more exam and after that it will be fun fun fun! :D Hopefully...
Right now I'm meant to be practising for my aural exam, it's just some prepared singing and rhythms. Usually I play them on the piano but it's getting late, so I decided to put them into Sibelius. But of course I keep getting distracted by the internet. Such a big and wondrous place. :P

So my aural exam is on Monday. And afterwards I'm going shopping! I need some new dresses for winter and maybe a jacket if I can afford it. I'm thinking I won't be able to afford it, but we'll see. Afterwards I might go back to uni and watch a recital, depends on how I feel and how much shopping I have to carry... :D Hopefully lots of shopping for very little money...

I've discovered a new website to help me procrastinate. It's called polyvore.com. One creates an account and can then create sets. Fashion sets, Art sets, Interior design sets... whatever. Here's one that I created:

Hopefully that works...
I should also be practising my AYO excerpts. I don't know if I'll get into anything, but I'll give it a try. I've played two of the excerpts before, so that should help...

Anyways, so on Tuesday, my first official HOLIDAY!!!! day, I'm wasting the day away and then giong to see the student preview of 42nd Street, this semester's musical theatre performance with Annie. Lots of my other friends from uni will also be there. Yay! I'm looking forward to it. Might go watch some more recitals during the week, not really sure what's on. And on Friday it's the end of semester party! I'm going with Annie and other friends will be there. It will hopefully be awesome!!!! (The guy I like will also be there.) So it will be a fun-filled week all round. Hopefully I'll pass aural just to make the week perfect! :D

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

I should be sleeping right now...

I stayed up late to study. Of course I didn't exclusively study. I also watched Sailor Moon and checked my Facebook and twitter for updates. But I did do some harmony study.
And I filled in my National music camp/AYO application. Now, as soon as I get dad to fill in the credit card details I get the excerpts. Should be interesting. They're supposed to be hard. Usually I do ok at learning excerpts. I think I played the ones for the last WAYO audition quite well. And my viola playing keeps improving, thankfully. It would be terrible if I stayed at this mediocre level forever. Now I'm trying to motivate myself to pack up all my stuff and go to bed. I was also going to wash my hair, but I think I'll do that tomorrow morning, if I manage to get up. If I don't my hair will look absolutely disgusting. I'm meeting Annie and Ji-Min in the library at uni at 10 to do some harmony revision. I hope I can be a productive member of our study session.
I would love to wear heels to uni, but when I have to carry my bag and viola it's just too heavy to walk around in heels all day, especially since I catch public transport. I really need to get my license. I should see if I can book a test for the holidays. Although my parking needs more practise. Sigh... practise... Everything in life needs practise.
I didn't get into the final of the concerto competition, but I didn't expect to, so I'm still happy. I played well, and hopefully it will make for an awesome concert with the people that got in the final. The people that got in are Madeleine Antoine, Aidan Boase, Katherine Shinnick and Alexander Ong. Maddie and Aidan were also in the final last year and Aidan won it. Let's see if he can pull it off again this year. ;-)
I watched the afternoon performances on the second day of semis and all the performers were really good to the point where I'm not sure how the judges picked the finalists. I'm glad it was their job and not mine.
So now it's time for bed. Tomorrow I'll look like a zombie and probably feel like one too, but it should be an alright day. In the afternoon the ABC is recording the Cage piano concerto performed by Resonator, the new music ensemble at waapa with Anthony something as the soloist. He's really good. It's amazing how well he knows the piece and how he can play the style. It's mostly graphic notation, so it turns out differently each time. So that's tomorrow afternoon. I'm looking forward to it. :D And then hopefully I'll never have to play the piece again. :P I don't mind the music, but it's not my favourite. I much prefer Tchaikovsky! :D

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Study Week!

So the semester is nearly over and it's once again study week.


The last few weeks have been so busy. Last week I had two concerts with the Faith Court orchestra. On Wednesday and Thursday we played to a full house in the Music Auditorium at WAAPA. It was quite a short concert comprising of only two pieces. Ben Martin joined the orchestra for the first half of the concert to perform Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2. After the interval the orchestra performed Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5. I think the theme of the concert was Russian Romantics. The Russian's are in vogue at the moment. WASO just gave a concert entitled Russian Fire and WAYO is playing The Rite of Spring in its next concert. The Faith Court concerts went well. On the first night we performed the Tchaikovsky better than the Shostakovich and I think on the second night we gave an excellent performance of the Shostakovich but the Tchaikovsky didn't quite have the energy it did on Wednesday night. Neville Cohn wrote a favourable review of the Wednesday night performance for the West Australian.


On Tuesday Eneksis sang in the free classical lunchtime concert at WAAPA. Eneksis is a chamber choir at WAAPA which one of my lecturers runs. I auditioned for it for the first time this year and was, I have to admit, a little surprised when I got in. This was the second concert for the choir this year, but I had a cold during the first performance, which was combined with the WAAPA strings and so didn't sing, but I played in the string orchestra. The Tuesday lunchtime concert performance went quite well, I think. Photos of the performance are on Facebook somewhere...


On Friday night I had a rehearsal with WAYO for the Sunday conert "The Planets". The rehearsal was originally scheduled for Thursday night but got postponed to Friday because of the Faith Court Orchestra Concert. Most of the brass players in Faith Court are also in WAYO as are three of the violists. Four before Alix quit WAYO. We had another WAYO rehearsal on Saturday morning but I came down with something over the course of Friday and felt really sick by then end of that night's rehearsal. So I spent Saturday in bed. However by Sunday I was feeling well enough, and stubborn enough, to go to that morning's "sound check" and to play in the concert that afternoon. I put sound check in quotation marks because usually the soundcheck comprises of topping and tailing the pieces we're playing and maybe going over some of the more tricky questions. But on Sunday morning we went through all the pieces in full. We played Bolero twice! Personally I think this wasn't a great idea, because we only had two hours to recover afterwards and I know the brass player could've done with more recovery time. Myself I wasn't feeling great anyway, because I was still a little sick so I didn't have that much expendable energy. The concert still went well, I think. :-)



After the concert I got changed into some blacks that were less cleavagy and covered my knees and got a lift with someone to a temple in Warwick where we were performing a Cantata which Sam Parry had arranged. We got some dinner when we got there and then we performed it. I think the performance went well. A few of us had already been in the WAYO performance (including Sam) and were correspondingly tired, but it was a good performance to a big audience.


This week is study week. Right now I'm waiting for some chicken nuggets or something to finish. I put them in the oven about 20 minutes ago, so they're nearly done. After I've eaten some lunch I'll have to get onto practicing. I'm competing in the Warana Music Award Heats 2009 tomorrow. The Warana Music Award is the concerto competition at WAAPA. It was held for the first time last year and it is quite competitive. This year there are 24 hopefulls competing, three of which will go through to a final performing with the faith court orchestra and one of those will be the winner. Last year the finalists were Madeline Antoine, Joshua Webster and Aidan Boase. Aidan won. I don't think I will go through to the final, mainly because I know how well everyone else in the heats plays. I entered for the experience and because I don't have a performance exam this semester because I'm an Ed student. So it gave me something to work towards. Unfortunately I was insanely busy over the last few weeks and then got sick over the weekend (I spend Monday in bed, recovering from Sunday) so I haven't practised my piece as much as I would've hoped. Thankfully I had it up to performance standard before all the bussy-ness kicked in. So, lunch is cooked, time to eat and then do some practise.