The End of Year Number Two

Recently, about ten days ago, I finished year number two of a doctoral program in music. Finished! Year Number TWO! Of a DOCTORAL PROGRAM! (That's me being excited, and disbelieving. Mostly disbelieving.) Still have probably two more to go; since I'm an overachiever, I'm tacking on a theory minor in addition to the piano major. Since I'm not completely insane, I'm going to stretch out that academic course work for an extra year. Then again, when all that is done, I'll still have comps and the dissertation to write ... but for now, done with year number two!  

I am, however, still working on my independent study German course. Yep, you read that right. The one I was trudging my way through last December? Yep, same one. I found it impossible to do German in addition to the eleven credits I was taking in my recital semester. You saw the recital I gave (last post). (Addendum to first paragraph -- yes, I am completely insane.)  So. I now have to hurry up and finish it before my incomplete turns into an F. And I can assure you, it will do no such thing. Thursday is the mid-term; send me good thoughts.  

This past weekend, instead of doing German homework, I drove to the suburbs of Chicago to visit my dear friend E., who was giving her first doctoral recital. BRAVA, E! It was truly great. She'd played it in Iowa a few weeks back, maybe six, and it grew a lot since that performance. The Brahms (Handel Variations) was a lot more organic, there was more breathing time and indeed, it was a solid, lovely performance. What really improved was the second half of the program, Prokofiev's 8th Sonata. It was amazing! Especially since the first time I'd heard it -- the lines were much more clearly delineated, more layers, more melody, more shaping, and the phrases just made a lot more musical sense. And the COLORS, wow. Yay, E! I'm so proud of you.

Whilst in the suburbs of Northern Chicago, I visited an Apple Store and went to the so-called "Genius Bar." My laptop, which I am normally quite fond of and happy with, has been spontaneously and intermittently crashing on me these past two weeks. Said "Genius" (ha! not even close) was not particularly helpful, performing a "diagnostic test" that I myself (remember from my first post and how I said I really don't know anything about technology? Nothing has changed on that front since December) did with the help of my user's manual. So now .... guess I'll wait and see what happens and hope that I don't need to spend some ridiculous amount of money to fix it. I need my computer for a presentation I'm giving this upcoming Sunday and I didn't want to ship it off to the Apple Depot, at least not just yet.  

And so after having an unfruitful visit to the Apple Store, I had to do one of my least favorite things ever, which is drive through the Chicago Suburbs on the Tollway. Answer me this: why, on God's green earth, when a person spends so much of her hard-earned TA money on tolls, are the roads so crappy? Plus, there's always road construction in the Chicago Suburbs. My jaw clenches just thinking about that, the concrete pylons on one side of you and speeding semis roaring past on the other. At least the weather was decent -- it wasn't lightning and hailing as had been predicted. And I had my usual laugh at the absurdity of the "Oases" just off the tollway. Because, you know, when you're driving along on the concrete tangle of tollroads amidst the Illinois cornfields, nothing screams OASIS louder than a McDonalds, Mobil, and Starbucks.