Sickness reminds me to care deeply about things I love, to cultivate intensity and passion in life, and to give the best I can to the world when I'm healthy.

Right now, however, it means that I'm actually using livej*rnal while I'm stuck here in my bed, waiting for this terrible cough to go away, gently poking it with metaphorical sticks of medicine. I hope that it subsides enough by tomorrow for me to walk ten minutes without completely draining my energy. The sub-zero wind chill doesn't help my breathing, either.

I was looking forward to finally being in a place next year that doesn't freeze over every winter, but it isn't looking likely after all that that will happen. I've had auditions at the Eastman School of Music, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Washington at Seattle, all of which have stellar organ programs. I've yet to audition at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, but it rounds out my selection of four schools. When I left the University of Rochester my freshman year, I told myself that I would be able to come back for graduate school if I wanted to, but also that I didn't want to return to that place. My audition, though, left me little doubt: Eastman is where I want to be next year. Their organ program is fantastic--quite possibly the best in the country. I've yet to see, since my auditions were just this past week, whether they'll take me--but I hope they will. The weather there, though: so cold! so snowy! I've wondered for a long time why the top music schools are almost invariably in the colder parts of our country, but that's the way it is, and that's what I'll have to deal with for the next few years, I think. The tarots look right for a return to Rochester.

I find the audition process to be fairly ridiculous. For one, auditioning in person is greatly encouraged and even required at some schools; little wrong with that, sure. But these auditions are frequently limited to 10-15 minutes of playing, with nothing else occurring except a brief "Do you have any questions?" session (a masked hint to impress them with your social skills, as well?). I'd never been to Austin or Seattle, so I was happy to experience those wonderful cities for the first time, but the actual audition seems underwhelming. I'd personally prefer an hour-long audition, perhaps with thirty minutes of playing a variety of styles, twenty minutes of testing various skills--aural comprehension, continuo, sightreading, and so on--and a ten-minute oral session that might involve things like one's future plans, knowledge of the instrument and repertoire, and more. This is much more rigorous for the student than just preparing fifteen minutes of music to play, but would give me much more confidence that the teachers knew what kind of student they were accepting. Evaluations such as the GRE are completely unnecessary, too. My 99th percentile score or my knowledge of words like "hirsute" are not going to accurately say whether I can do well at what a school wants me to do, whether it's playing the organ or conducting doctoral research in neuroscience; tests like the GRE instead indicate my ability to detect patterns in the "wrong" answers and thereby deduce the "correct" answer. I'm just glad that I wasn't left behind the way today's children are, from what I've heard about the current state of public schools in my hometown. Or, maybe I could start communicating via multiple-choice answers. Let's try it.

This is
a) a good method of evaluating intelligence
b) training in how the world works: one right answer and several wrong ones
c) a non-sequitur
d) ironic

I
a) am sick
b) have bronchitis
c) have laryngitis
d) all of the above

and therefore I
a) am going to go curl up in a ball for a while and hope it goes away.
b) am cranky and lack the continued concentration to form clever yet inaccurate answers.
c) am grateful to the peoples that have been taking care of me and/or sending sympathy my way.
d) all of the above

still can't sleep, but I amused myself by cracking the NBA Jam password system. yes, the SNES NBA Jam from about 1992. Terrible shot!

kitty and our new perpetually sick kitten are keeping me company. the rest of the world will think about waking up soon.

Current Mood: inside ockeghem!

are really quite well right now, with most days consisting of much happiness tinged with moments of poignancy, in the more painful sense of the word. Certain things don't hurt that you might expect to, and others do. I don't miss certain people I thought I might, but I do others. People don't seem to have changed at all in their three months' absence, and my life feels like it was on temporary hiatus all summer; my organ teacher will probably feel the same way :-P. It's like certain people never left, and I just sat here patiently waiting for them to return from a brief weekend away.

And grad school approaches, and I'm not ready yet. I always thought I would be by now, would have finally kicked in and overcome boredness with classes and become a model student and all that, but I still can't subscribe to the system, can't slave away at things I don't believe in, can't lock myself indoors to somehow improve myself, even though I've tried to convince myself that it must be worthwhile somehow. But I still believe that I'll end up at the right place for grad school, manage to put together a high-quality audition repertoire (or repertory) in the next three months, and shuttle off to a big city somewhere.

With or without that special someone. I get the distinct feeling that I'm never going to plan a move without bearing someone specific in mind...

also, I feel like guys have been asking the wrong question all these centuries, and it's not "why are girls so complicated?", but rather, "why am I so complicated?"
or that might just be me.

back to feigning sleep, I suppose.

rarg, I wish Oberlin were harder

if you interacted in some way with me today, or any day in the future, visit here and add to the collection:
1) name one thing that I did or said today that you liked.
2) name one thing that you didn't like.
3) name something you think I should do that I haven't yet.
4) name one person you miss that might not know about it.
5) name one thing that you love.

thanks,
noah

Write three things about me that bother you the most. comments are screened and I am fine with you posting anonymously for extra sharp honesty.
If you like to be balanced in these things, you can also write three things that you like about me.

I just put myself into a position which will demand that I spend a lot more time online, or at least a lot of time online, and it's not an online game, if you were wondering. Who wants to spend their summer staring at a computer screen?.. but then again my hands don't last very long practicing the trickiest parts of Vierne -- I need to treat it a lot more like weightlifting and vary the practicing and stresses, so that I don't wear out my muscles rapidly.

I've been playing a lot of soccer; discovered, to my surprise, that I actually do have rather a knack for it, and with a lot of training I'd be quite excellent. But it's hard to find people to play with around here.

I don't really know what brought me back to this place, or who I'm writing to, or why I'm writing at all, but there you have it: I'm writing anyways, for the sake of writing, to create symbols on your screen, or my screen, or anyone's screen, and to bring a little more humanity into a world already far too saturated with it. Or perhaps with not nearly enough.

How would you feel if you died right now? Are there things you haven't told people that you wish you would have if you had to die now? Can you read this without being afraid of it? Have you shared love every chance you've had? Have you touched every person that you could have, or wanted to? Have you made someone's day better every time you could? Have you loved someone, anyone, everyone? Have you accepted them, truly accepted what they are, and loved them for it?

If you haven't--
Let's go and start together.

I have a new mission in life: to become incredibly nimble of feet. Side quests to be undertaken in order to complete this mission include: organ pedaling, soccer, DDR, tap dancing if I can get myself to do it, other types of dancing, and maybe back massage a la kitty.

Also, Sarah and I received not one but two boxes of nothing but organ music in the mail today, from a man I spent only a little time with while he was here for BPI, but must have made an impression on. It's a fair treasure trove- the complete works of Reger, and nearly every major organ composer represented in the collection. I already have a large (at this point, anyways) set of organ music inherited from my aunt and uncle (yes, they were both organists), but this is quite excellent.

And in bad news, the kitty appears to have re-contracted fleas. They are now invading my laptop and probably my bed soon. BAD KITTY.

Current Mood: annoyed with kitty!

We drink Ritalin!

See this if you're confused.

I really love references to Internet culture; maybe it's a faint, faint echo of how Dante felt writing The Divine Comedy. Just mentioning things in casual conversation and having an appropriate response is brilliant and sometimes inspires me to seek out new culture.

And that's what makes me a nerd. QED.
(Or QID, as Crean said in Collegium.)

Current Mood: content

This is a popular question, and I always feel like my answer is subject to scrutiny and judgment. Be that as it may, I'll answer briefly: playing the organ. But not as much as I should be -- does any "music major" ever say that they practice enough? -- right now, at least, my fingers haven't been able to stand up to the stress that I've been placing on them during the past week, although they're becoming much stronger. However, I did manage to somewhat squander June, although there were certainly high points there, too.

I've been playing a few games, too -- many of you might say, big surprise! Yesterday I purchased Star Wars Galaxies, and, after five hours of installing and updating, finally sat down to play it- and discovered, to my dismay, that the lag was fairly hideous. I think the cause is my graphics card, which is a rather weak 64 MB Geforce5200 that came with my laptop -- yes, I'm playing Star Wars Galaxies on a laptop. That puts a cramp in my plans to fly an X-Wing, but, too bad.

My income stems from playing in churches each Sunday, either at my "home" church of St. Peter's Episcopal, Lakewood, or my temporary summer home, Bethesda-on-the-Bay, Bay Village. It's enough to live on. Trader Joe's fans will be pleased to know that I'm now using them as my primary grocery store, since it's only about five minutes out of the way on my way home from church.

It's a fairly sedate life - no beaches, no swimming, little alcohol, and little running around in woods - but it's fine enough for now. I'll be at Squam Lake, New Hampshire, at the end of the month, so that will definitely raise the running-around-in-woods quotient -- and swimming waits just around the corner. I think if there were one definite way to improve the summer so far, I'd lock myself in a practice room for more hours, just to ensure I don't have to do that during the school year.

I've seen many people, many people have seen me, I've been in a better mood than at the end of the school year, and I'm starting to play sports often - soccer and frisbee are particularly enjoyable to pick up and play - so, generally, things are good. How are your summers?

Current Mood: good

I've finally resolved a part of myself that has been difficult to deal with for a long time, and, I think, weighed heavily on the minds of others. I'm sorry for all the uneasiness, uncomfortability, and unhappiness that it caused over the past year or two. And I think I can be more open about it now, and about other things as well. Thank you for the patience you've given me, in this and in all things.
-Noah

No, there aren't actually any entries here anymore. I will write you a personal one if you ask nicely.