Sunday, February 16, 2014

A Day in the Life (3)



1.  Some of you may have noticed I haven't been posting very much recently...and I promise there's a good reason for it!  Over the last two weeks, I've had not one, not two, but FIVE auditions!!!  And for those of you who don't understand the ridiculously large number that is it = insanity. On top of that I'm playing principal oboe on Verdi's Falstaff.  Again, to put this in perspective a 2 hour Mahler symphony is maybe 15 pages of music.  Yeah.  This is twice as much music.  And it is so freaking hard.  I'd say it's impossible, except that apparently other superhuman oboists can do it.



This has been my life for the past month.


2.  Speaking of auditions, last weekend I had a scary audition moment!  The train got stuck on the tracks for an entire HALF AN HOUR.  So instead of showing up early to my audition, I showed up 5 minutes after my audition started.  This wouldn't have been such a big deal as I called ahead to let them know, and it turns out that I had the last time...but the conductor had a flight directly afterwards that he had to catch, so I had to go in cold.  And when I say cold I mean that both literally and figuratively.  No warm up, I just launched straight into the Mozart Oboe Concerto, which for those of you who don't know (I imagine most of you) is basically the defining piece of our repertoire and is extremely difficult.  Starting it with no warm up is like sprinting across a tightrope.  Or so I would imagine as I neither run nor have any dealings with tightropes haha.  And my lips were literally freezing, so I couldn't even feel my reed!  But it went surprisingly well and he really liked my cadenza :D :D :D



Most musicians don't write their own cadenzas anymore, but I'm starting to because it gives the piece your own flair.  Sadly...I completely pooped all over my La Mer excerpt.  Who knows why, it was the last thing I got to (Ok I know why.  As soon as you start thinking "Oh this is going pretty well" things start going very, very wrong).  But who knows, maybe it's impressive enough that I played cold and my cadenza was nice?


3.  I swore I wasn't going to request anymore ARC's, because honestly even the thought of reading an ARC makes me slightly ill right now.  But I totally just got on Netgalley and requested more.  Agh!  No self control!  I feel guilty if I'm not reading my ARC's right now because I'm waaaaay behind on those.  So my solution has been to not read at all, which is typical of stressed out Elizabeth logic haha.  Lots of pokemon though...

 I'm basically the most badass pokemon ever, btw.  Just sayin.


4.  When I get stressed out I cope by doing NOTHING AT ALL.  It's terrible!  And the less I do, the more stressed I get, so the less I do.  It's a terrible cycle.  So although I've been crazy busy, I've managed to watch the better part of two seasons of Chuck, and I'm rewatching some Buffy.  (You know I think I'm going to turn into a Spike girl this time around, I think I've moved past the broody boy phase.  I did love Angel, but I'm just not getting the same sparks.  This could be because I skipped most of season 1 though)


5.  Speaking of Chuck...I realized something.  Something that bothers me a lot.  On the surface, there's some good diversity.  But I've noticed something specifically about black characters in this show.  They are always giant men, and they are always bullies.  They don't even get the distinction of being evil masterminds.  There are no well dressed black men, there are no normal sized black men, there are no smart black men.  They are dumb, bulked-up giants or fat and their only point in the show is to bully the skinny, smart, geeky men.  And I find that offensive.  I think the show overall is very entertaining, so hopefully this changes over the next 3 seasons


So my friends, that's where I have been for the past couple weeks!  Anything fun and crazy happen in yours?

18 comments:

  1. Not nearly as exciting as what you've been up to! Best of luck with all of the auditions you've had.

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  2. You have been a busy bee! Good luck with your auditions :)

    Ah Buffy. I need to get on to watching the series one day. I have it on dvd but never really got in to it when it aired (oddly enough, I liked Angel rather a lot though).

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  3. Thanks! I should in fact be DONE...but turns out they forgot to schedule my audition this morning. WHO DOES THAT?! So. I have to go back tonight. Sorry, totally venting. Thanks for stopping by!

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  4. Haha thanks!

    You need to watch Buffy!!! I liked Angel well enough, but Buffy was way better as a whole.

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  5. I have the same response to really overwhelming stress - do as much of nothing as possible. It seems very counter-productive but it must be a brain thing. I've been having a similar high stress time at work lately though with less oboe playing and more travel, presentations, meetings and Bald Eagles taking over my life. Having Bald Eagles take over your life may sound at least somewhat interesting but trust me, it ain't.

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  6. Yeah I don't think I have a fight or flight response so much as a freeze or flight response to stress haha! Yergh presentations and I don't much get along, and travel is much less fun when it's just hotels and presentations haha. l think you might have mentioned on your blog that you were counting Bald Eagle populations? Am I making that up? (And if so in what ways are Bald Eagles taking over your life, because you're right it definitely sounds interesting haha)

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  7. Yay! At least you've been good busy! We had three snow days last week, and this week is winter break, so my daughter and I have been having fun. But I really need to get my butt back to the studio and start painting!!! :/

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  8. That is true, this is all good busy. I would have KILLED for a snow day though! I thought I was walking through a blizzard today on my way to school it was insane haha. Winter break is halfway through February? Is that sort of like spring break then? My winter break is usually a few weeks, so I can't imagine it's the same!

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  9. The kids get one week in February for skiing (winter break) and one week in April for the beach (spring break) rather than one week in March for spring break when the weather is so unpredictable.

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  10. That is quite an audition tale! As if those things were not nerve-wracking enough all by themselves!

    The hubby and I finished The West Wing and then we had no idea what to watch. We just started Fringe, but maybe we should give Chuck a try at some point....

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  11. That is really nice! I'm jealous haha

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  12. It totally was haha! I'm still trying to catch up with all the life stuff I put on hold.

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  13. I know right?!

    I really need to finish West Wing! I watched the first season, but I got distracted somewhere along the way. I LOVE Fringe! Season 1 is pretty episodic but I think season 2 is where the really long story arcs come in. And season 3 and 4 are pretty much some of the most fantastic things I've ever seen. Chuck is a lot of fun, but Fringe is way better in my book haha

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  14. I'm in charge of a lot of the Bald Eagle data collection in my state and it's definitely the most high profile species I work with. Because of this I get a lot of requests for data, reports of nest disturbance, thorny ethical questions involving eagle protection etc... Last week I got hit with all of these in a drop-everything-and-deal-with-this sort of way. So less watching the awesome eagles and appreciating the beauty of nature and more eagle angst.

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  15. Bahahah eagle angst! But yeah it sounds like a lot of stress, particularly if it piles up all at once (and of course it does, because LIFE.)

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  16. How fun that you are getting all these auditions!! And Chuck! I love Chuck so much. I miss that show. I can't remember if things change with the black characters or not. I find that it is sad that a lot of shows don't ever really have black leads in them. It's really too bad.

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  17. It's such a fun show that I'm willing to go along even if I don't always like certain aspects of it (because when it comes down to it, I'm watching things for fun. And also it's on Netflix which is convenient)

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  18. Wow! Sounds crazy and intense. I love the little insight into your life!

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