Tuesday, 30th of July, 2002
I don't have any servers right now that will give me CGI access, so I used SearchMaker Pro to index my site and provide a Javascript search engine. The result is a rather huge page (171k of database that has to be downloaded) but once it's downloaded it's really quick. I gave the entire site interface a little facelift too to accomodate the new search page. Once I have a dedicated connection again in college, I'll consider putting on a CGI search engine so all the text of the website could be indexed.
Wednesday, 24th of July, 2002
I went to the Muny with some friends tonight to see The Fantasticks at the Muny tonight. It was a rather unique musical, and the humour was very random - half of it could pass for improv comedy. But that made it pretty funny, how ridiculous it was.
Sunday, 21st of July, 2002
My parents came to get me yesterday and so after worship this morning and another encounter with the fire alarms in Westminister Hall we drove back to St. Louis. There was a small but respectable go-kart track in Kokomo, IN that we stopped at, and so that was kinda amusing, but nothing too impressive to speak of (like the ones in Dallas).
Saturday, 20th of July, 2002
Wow, I definitely got sick in my stomach today. Nothing I eat is digesting, so I spent much of the day resting and lying down. Still had to play a concert tonight, and I was feeling pretty miserable through most of it, with a headache and all. But I definitely went to bed as soon as possible to get some rest.
Wednesday, 17th of July, 2002
I attended a seminar at Masterworks today held by a couple professional violinist on professional symphony auditions. Wow, it's really brutal out there. There's like this unoffocial collection of really hard orchestral excerpts that all the various orchestras across the country pick and chose from - and as a professional musician one is expected to be able to play any of them in a given audition perfectly. It's much more brutal than playing a solo piece or recital or something. It's a crazy amount of stress and dependency on unknown factors in a short period of time. It's interesting to find out, even though I never plan on being in such a position.
Tuesday, 16th of July, 2002
There was a gas leak in Westminister Hall today, where all the guys' rooms and practice rooms are, so we had to evacuate the building for 1.5 hours while the fire alarms went off and the fire department fixed things. At least my laundry was running while that happened.
Monday, 15th of July, 2002
From the July 2002 Road and Track magazine:
"Two weighty things happened on a fast, open stretch of West Texas highway, says the New York Times. First, a big tractor-trailer running from the U.S. Mint in Denver to the Federal Reserve in San Antonio crashed and spread 20 conts of bright new pennies all over the landscape. Second, it rained a lot. The 7.6 million coins sank into the mud, and when it all dried up they had become fully embedded. It took eight dump trucks to haul the pennies and dirt to Lubbock for cleaning, so banks would accept them."
"Down in Slidell, Louisiana, two thieves reflected briefly on fate's generosity in providing them with a parked and running Krispy Kreme delivery truck, then leapt in and sped off. Unfortunately the rear doors were open, and the truckjackers left a 15-mile trail of doughnuts, enabling a quick and successful police pursuit.
Friday, 12th of July, 2002
Tonight the other larger part of the orchestra played their concert. They started out with Russian Easter Overture, which brings back memories of 9th grade YPSO. Wow, I remember that piece vividly still, I don't believe it was that long ago. That's what happens when one spends 5 months working on one piece I suppose. The ballet dancers joined in orchestra and coreographed Barber's Adagio for Strings. The piece is already really awesome, and then it was further enhanced by very touching coreography called the Voice of Ramah. One of the dance faculty also danced to Saint Saen's Swan, and it was really cool. The way she moved her arms made them look like they were made out of liquid or something.
Thursday, 11th of July, 2002
This week parts of the orchestra were broken off to play in the opera production of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro (9 violins, 3 vla, 2 cello, winds, brass), and we had our first performance tonight. The rest of the orchestra is accompanying concerto competition winners and the ballet group, performing tomorrow. Wow, over the week I've grown so much in love with this opera. Mozart style is so unique, special, and so perfect - just like the Requiem that I love so much. We've been having 6 hours of rehearsal every day this week so far and it's been stuck in my head all week and I just love it more. It's so awesome, Mozart was such a genius!
By the way, here's something funny to imagine:
- Take 5 sheets of black construction paper.
- Scotch tape them into a single 5 sheet long sheet.
- Place start of "page" into fax machine.
- Dial the "recipient".
- Watch sheet start going into the fax machine with glee.
- Once out the other side, Scotch Tape beginning of "sheet" to end of sheet forming a giant black loop.
- You Are Done! Not only that, but the recipient is now out of ink or toner.
Friday, 5th of July, 2002
It was the guest soloist's birthday today, and we were rehearsing the Dvorak Cello Concerto with her this morning. The whole orchestra decided to surprise her by breaking into Happy Birthday during a climatic part of the first movement. It was pretty funny.
Thursday, 4th of July, 2002
With lots of planning and string, we got together most of the people at the festival and laid down on a grass field to form a big human "MWF 2002" sign, and someone flew over the field with a plane and a camera and took photos.
Tonight we had something special at Masterworks, the "Un-gong Show". There were some really funny skits, like one of the theatre faculty did "A Brief Tribute to Jim Carry", and it was really good. Another one I loved was the "Top 10 Pickup Lines - from the Song of Solomon".
Wednesday, 3rd of July, 2002
A really cool dance company, the Hosanna Sacred Arts Dance Company, is visiting Masterworks and they did a really cool concert tonight. I guess I haven't seen the, what should I call it, less traditional ballet before. They coreographed stuff to things like String's How Fragile We Are and Copland's Appalachian Spring. Then they did a wonderful work that was based off of Ecclsiastes 3:1-8. It was really cool, for the first time I actually could see very vivid, artistic, and beautiful motions that represented concrete ideas, objects, and feelings.