I have had the misfortune of being rather ill for the past several days. It's nothing crazy, just a bad cold/mild flu sort of thing. Chicken soup, lotsa fluids, and dayquil.
Yes, everyone's a bit freaked out about swine flu. Yes, I was the one who started the joke that I maybe shouldn't have made out with that pig down in Tijuana last weekend. But does every...single...person that I mention my illness to have to joke that I probably have swine flu? By this point, its gotten to the point where it's stopped being funny and started me having to pre-empt the joke.
"Hey man, I'm not feeling too well."
"Whoah, watch out, you might have..."
"...swine flu, yes, I know. Ha ha. Look at your wit, making jokes out of the headlines of the day."
Again, I can't be too judgmental, because I was making the joke before anyone else was. I just fear I've created a monster I can no longer control.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Finito
I probably should have written this earlier, when I was still on a high from finishing, but I am officially done with my third year of college (or university, as they insist on calling it up here)!
That's all.
That's all.
Monday, April 27, 2009
The one you've all been waiting for...
So I'm back! I know you've all been waiting with bated breath to hear about my big adventure in Boston...so I won't waste any more time.
I met up with my rideshare buddies in Montreal's Gare Centrale at about one p.m. I was happy to discover a lack of serial killers among them--my partners in Boston-going turned out to be a McGill Computer Science student and two history post-docs, one from McGill, one from Concordia. We had a pleasant and fairly uneventful ride down through Quebec/Vermont/New Hampshire, and I arrived in Boston around 6:30.
Rural Quebec:
The Boston waterfront:
Boston is an amazingly beautiful city. I've only been here once before, and that was more than two years ago. It was also February, and I had a terrible case of the flu almost the entire time, so my memories of it were not pleasant. This time, though, it was astounding. All the cherry trees were in bloom, and the weather had just gotten nice enough that the denizens of B-town were out celebrating in full force.
Boston Common at sunset:
I made my way across the Charles river to MIT, where I rendezvous-ed with my friend Jenna. The amount of time we've spent around each other in the past several years is surprisingly small given how close we are as friends, and it was a lovely reunion. I didn't have much time to celebrate--I had to run up to her room and change into my dress clothes in order to go out to her sorority formal (one of the two main reasons I was there). I, Jenna, a few of her fellow Kappa Alpha Thetas and their dates all went out to dinner before heading down to the formal, which was at...wait for it...the freakin' aquarium. In the same room with the penguins. It was pretty damn cool--even if penguins do smell a bit unfortunate. Afterwards, it was back to the dorms to hang out with some of Jenna's friends...who are, coincidentally, all Indian.
Thetas and dates:
At dinner:
Penguins!
Friends:
More friends:
The next day (Saturday) was possibly one of the greatest days of my life. After enjoying the unbelievable weather and the joie de vivre around the MIT campus, I went with Jenna and her friends to the campus celebration of the Indian festival of Holi, which (in this rather Westernized incarnation) involved paint throwing, super soakers, tossing people into kiddie pools filled with water, and frighteningly large amounts of shaving cream. Needless to say, it was massive amounts of fun.
My home for the weekend:
The Stata center on campus, or the "WTF were they thinking" building:
Springtime at MIT:
Post-Holi:
After we cleaned ourselves off (which took quite a while), Jenna and I headed off to see Ben Folds. It's hard for me to describe how incredibly excited I was to see this concert. As I said before, he's been one of my musical heroes for a long time, and he's supposed to be an astounding showman. We managed to get there early enough to get in the front row (!!!!), and...needless to say, I wasn't disappointed.
He did play quite a bit of his new stuff, but he stuck mostly to the more fun, uptempo stuff--a side of Mr. Folds I've always preferred. He also played a bunch of his older solo stuff (Zak and Sara!), and even a few BFF numbers: no "Kate" or "One Angry Dwarf," but he did "Fair," "Army," (not my videos) and Brick. The audience was incredibly into it--we did the horn section bit on "Army" without his prompting, and he was so pleased with us he did "Bitches Ain't Shit," which he recently retired--and although he didn't do "Rock This Bitch" (his traditional improvised song), he did improvise a song about playing in the MIT gymnasium (also not my video).
In one of the coolest parts of the show, he took a leaf out of John Cage's book, putting altoids tins on the strings of his piano and running the microphone picking up his playing through a distortion pedal, making his piano sound like a rather crazy synthesizer. It was one of the coolest sounds I'd ever heard, and the crowd went nuts when he launched into a song using it.
At the very end of the concert, he got the crowd doing the backing vocals for "Not the Same," and, at the end of the song, ran to the front of the stage and started conducting the audience--first one side was brought to a crescendo while the other side pulsated, then the two flipped, then the volume level was swelled and cut off, then the two sides were led to alternate the high and low harmonies, etc. etc.--the audience of probably more than a thousand people was almost literally putty in his hands. What a fucking performer.
The next day was very relaxed. After waking up and wandering around campus a bit, Jenna and I headed into downtown Boston to wander around the streets. After crossing the Harvard bridge, which is still measured in Smoots, we strolled down Newbury street, got some cheap n' dirty burgers at Pourhouse, and some not-so-cheap-and-fairly-clean ice cream at J.P. Licks. I then had to pack up my stuff and meet my rideshare buddies back at South Station. We made seriously great time heading up to Montreal--barely five hours--and had a pretty relaxed time of it.
Greek Week cake bake-off:
Crossing the Charles:
Optimistic sign halfway across the bridge (pointing at MIT):
Boston!
I like ice cream:
Heading home:
I don't have the time nor energy to engage in some sort of giant reflection on the weekend...and I don't think I need to, really. I had a great time, met cool new people, saw some amazing music and scenery, and got to take my mind off finals for a few days. All in all, a complete success. Viva springtime.
I met up with my rideshare buddies in Montreal's Gare Centrale at about one p.m. I was happy to discover a lack of serial killers among them--my partners in Boston-going turned out to be a McGill Computer Science student and two history post-docs, one from McGill, one from Concordia. We had a pleasant and fairly uneventful ride down through Quebec/Vermont/New Hampshire, and I arrived in Boston around 6:30.
Rural Quebec:
The Boston waterfront:
Boston is an amazingly beautiful city. I've only been here once before, and that was more than two years ago. It was also February, and I had a terrible case of the flu almost the entire time, so my memories of it were not pleasant. This time, though, it was astounding. All the cherry trees were in bloom, and the weather had just gotten nice enough that the denizens of B-town were out celebrating in full force.
Boston Common at sunset:
I made my way across the Charles river to MIT, where I rendezvous-ed with my friend Jenna. The amount of time we've spent around each other in the past several years is surprisingly small given how close we are as friends, and it was a lovely reunion. I didn't have much time to celebrate--I had to run up to her room and change into my dress clothes in order to go out to her sorority formal (one of the two main reasons I was there). I, Jenna, a few of her fellow Kappa Alpha Thetas and their dates all went out to dinner before heading down to the formal, which was at...wait for it...the freakin' aquarium. In the same room with the penguins. It was pretty damn cool--even if penguins do smell a bit unfortunate. Afterwards, it was back to the dorms to hang out with some of Jenna's friends...who are, coincidentally, all Indian.
Thetas and dates:
At dinner:
Penguins!
Friends:
More friends:
The next day (Saturday) was possibly one of the greatest days of my life. After enjoying the unbelievable weather and the joie de vivre around the MIT campus, I went with Jenna and her friends to the campus celebration of the Indian festival of Holi, which (in this rather Westernized incarnation) involved paint throwing, super soakers, tossing people into kiddie pools filled with water, and frighteningly large amounts of shaving cream. Needless to say, it was massive amounts of fun.
My home for the weekend:
The Stata center on campus, or the "WTF were they thinking" building:
Springtime at MIT:
Post-Holi:
After we cleaned ourselves off (which took quite a while), Jenna and I headed off to see Ben Folds. It's hard for me to describe how incredibly excited I was to see this concert. As I said before, he's been one of my musical heroes for a long time, and he's supposed to be an astounding showman. We managed to get there early enough to get in the front row (!!!!), and...needless to say, I wasn't disappointed.
He did play quite a bit of his new stuff, but he stuck mostly to the more fun, uptempo stuff--a side of Mr. Folds I've always preferred. He also played a bunch of his older solo stuff (Zak and Sara!), and even a few BFF numbers: no "Kate" or "One Angry Dwarf," but he did "Fair," "Army," (not my videos) and Brick. The audience was incredibly into it--we did the horn section bit on "Army" without his prompting, and he was so pleased with us he did "Bitches Ain't Shit," which he recently retired--and although he didn't do "Rock This Bitch" (his traditional improvised song), he did improvise a song about playing in the MIT gymnasium (also not my video).
In one of the coolest parts of the show, he took a leaf out of John Cage's book, putting altoids tins on the strings of his piano and running the microphone picking up his playing through a distortion pedal, making his piano sound like a rather crazy synthesizer. It was one of the coolest sounds I'd ever heard, and the crowd went nuts when he launched into a song using it.
At the very end of the concert, he got the crowd doing the backing vocals for "Not the Same," and, at the end of the song, ran to the front of the stage and started conducting the audience--first one side was brought to a crescendo while the other side pulsated, then the two flipped, then the volume level was swelled and cut off, then the two sides were led to alternate the high and low harmonies, etc. etc.--the audience of probably more than a thousand people was almost literally putty in his hands. What a fucking performer.
The next day was very relaxed. After waking up and wandering around campus a bit, Jenna and I headed into downtown Boston to wander around the streets. After crossing the Harvard bridge, which is still measured in Smoots, we strolled down Newbury street, got some cheap n' dirty burgers at Pourhouse, and some not-so-cheap-and-fairly-clean ice cream at J.P. Licks. I then had to pack up my stuff and meet my rideshare buddies back at South Station. We made seriously great time heading up to Montreal--barely five hours--and had a pretty relaxed time of it.
Greek Week cake bake-off:
Crossing the Charles:
Optimistic sign halfway across the bridge (pointing at MIT):
Boston!
I like ice cream:
Heading home:
I don't have the time nor energy to engage in some sort of giant reflection on the weekend...and I don't think I need to, really. I had a great time, met cool new people, saw some amazing music and scenery, and got to take my mind off finals for a few days. All in all, a complete success. Viva springtime.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Off to Boston
I'm heading out to Boston this afternoon and won't be back until Sunday night.
I'll update you guys on my adventures when I return.
I'll update you guys on my adventures when I return.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The glory of practice
The past week or so I've been spending about an hour a day (with a metronome, of course) practicing really fundamental guitar thingies. Very fundamental...as in alternating two notes repeatedly for ten minutes, increasing speed, until I can do it completely cleanly.
I don't know how much of a difference it will make in how I sound (I'm hoping it will), but in how I FEEL when I'm playing--my level of comfort, the ease with which I feel musical ideas coming from me--it's made a huge difference in even such a tiny amount of time. There's something really amazing about knowing that if you're willing to put in that work the right way, you'll get better. It's like magic...and as strange as it sounds, knowing exactly how the neurons in the motor cortex and caudate nucleus and blah blah blah are encoding that practice and strengthening their connections gives me more motivation than ever to do it.
I always had a theoretical and somewhat begrudging respect for the power of simple and constant practice, but its only recently that I've really come to understand its power. I'm addicted now--feeling results like that after a week just makes me want to do more.
I don't know how much of a difference it will make in how I sound (I'm hoping it will), but in how I FEEL when I'm playing--my level of comfort, the ease with which I feel musical ideas coming from me--it's made a huge difference in even such a tiny amount of time. There's something really amazing about knowing that if you're willing to put in that work the right way, you'll get better. It's like magic...and as strange as it sounds, knowing exactly how the neurons in the motor cortex and caudate nucleus and blah blah blah are encoding that practice and strengthening their connections gives me more motivation than ever to do it.
I always had a theoretical and somewhat begrudging respect for the power of simple and constant practice, but its only recently that I've really come to understand its power. I'm addicted now--feeling results like that after a week just makes me want to do more.
The sun comes back...for a while.
This summary is not available. Please
click here to view the post.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Strange thought for the day...
In Marc Sageman's 2004 study on terrorism, less than half of the Jihadis he talked to had a Muslim upbringing. Also, they had a higher average education level than the average Canadian.
َQuestion your assumptions, I guess.
َQuestion your assumptions, I guess.
First You Get the Sugar live at Foufounes Electroniques
April 5, 2009
(That's me on the far right, guitar-ing away)
(That's me on the far right, guitar-ing away)
Craigslist, piano rock, and intergroup relations
So, for those who don't know (most of you?) I have been invited down to Boston over the weekend to attend a sorority formal and go see this man:
He's been a musical hero of mine since way back in my high school days...even if I much prefer him with his old band. Needless to say, I'm excited--although I'm hoping his setlist isn't too heavy on his newest album. Not a huge fan.
I was originally planning on taking Greyhound down there, as I normally do, until I found out that for some reason the price has gone up to a whopping $200 for a round trip. WTF, Greyhound, don't you know there's a recession goin' on?
So, desperate, I searched Craigslist's rideshare area and managed to find someone going down to Boston at around the same time I was. Now this is a McGill guy, so I'm not worried, but there's something rather sketchy about doing ANYTHING except buying random household items off Craigslist--and this coming from a long time Missed Connections reader and onetime Missed Connection. I feel like I should ask to meet this guy for coffee before we go, but I'm worried he might think I was trying to use Craigslist for some of its, er, other notable functions. I'm facing a Paul Rudd-esque dilemma: how do you ask another straight man out for a platonic friend-date? Or, in this case, a platonic you're-not-a-crazy-killer-are-you date?
In other news, I have a final exam tomorrow that I'm having serious issues studying for. I would, however, recommend one of the texts in the class for anyone with time on their hands (aka nobody):
It's a really interesting perspective on WHY exactly minority and other disadvantaged groups are doing so poorly in society. He basically lays blame at the feet of a decimated sense of collective identity in these groups. I think he tends to oversimplify the situation a bit, and the book occasionally descends into "old man ranting about e-mail and modern life" mode (he actually does this quite frequently in class as well), but the man is a force to be reckoned with and his ideas are powerful stuff.
Now I just have to convince myself to study.
He's been a musical hero of mine since way back in my high school days...even if I much prefer him with his old band. Needless to say, I'm excited--although I'm hoping his setlist isn't too heavy on his newest album. Not a huge fan.
I was originally planning on taking Greyhound down there, as I normally do, until I found out that for some reason the price has gone up to a whopping $200 for a round trip. WTF, Greyhound, don't you know there's a recession goin' on?
So, desperate, I searched Craigslist's rideshare area and managed to find someone going down to Boston at around the same time I was. Now this is a McGill guy, so I'm not worried, but there's something rather sketchy about doing ANYTHING except buying random household items off Craigslist--and this coming from a long time Missed Connections reader and onetime Missed Connection. I feel like I should ask to meet this guy for coffee before we go, but I'm worried he might think I was trying to use Craigslist for some of its, er, other notable functions. I'm facing a Paul Rudd-esque dilemma: how do you ask another straight man out for a platonic friend-date? Or, in this case, a platonic you're-not-a-crazy-killer-are-you date?
In other news, I have a final exam tomorrow that I'm having serious issues studying for. I would, however, recommend one of the texts in the class for anyone with time on their hands (aka nobody):
It's a really interesting perspective on WHY exactly minority and other disadvantaged groups are doing so poorly in society. He basically lays blame at the feet of a decimated sense of collective identity in these groups. I think he tends to oversimplify the situation a bit, and the book occasionally descends into "old man ranting about e-mail and modern life" mode (he actually does this quite frequently in class as well), but the man is a force to be reckoned with and his ideas are powerful stuff.
Now I just have to convince myself to study.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Much better than the name would suggest
I can only hope that someday I have the patience and writing ability to do what my friend Chris has done:
http://pedanticdrivel.blogspot.com/
He's studying abroad in South Africa, and writes one of the most in-depth, interesting, and well written blogs I've seen in a while about his time there. He gives you a real sense of the simultaneous tension and beauty of the place. Great photos, too.
Check it out. You won't regret it.
http://pedanticdrivel.blogspot.com/
He's studying abroad in South Africa, and writes one of the most in-depth, interesting, and well written blogs I've seen in a while about his time there. He gives you a real sense of the simultaneous tension and beauty of the place. Great photos, too.
Check it out. You won't regret it.
The wonder drug
I, like most of humanity, have an inordinate love of being in control of myself. The anxiety of losing control might be one of man's (or woman's) deepest, and certainly one of the most common. For that reason, I hate caffeine with a passion. I remember (very hazily, I hated English lit classes) in my enforced middle school reading of To Kill A Mockingbird that woman who weaned herself of morphine as she was dying, so she could die "beholden to nobody"--or something like that. I'm obviously being a bit melodramatic here, but I really do understand that feeling. I'm just glad I've never gotten myself addicted to anything worse.
Every morning, I wake up bleary-eyed and exhausted, no matter how fulfilling a night's sleep I gave myself. The only cure for this? I'm drinking it right now, and even as I type, I can feel the warmth flooding my brain, the world slowly resolving itself into some semblance of sensibility, and the day's tasks turning from vague and terrifying prospects into a clear and ordered list. Sure enough, after a couple hours, the fog comes creeping back in, and I run for another cup like a rat with a fucking lever. This continues until about four or five p.m., when I crash hard, and no cuppa Joe can save me.
Addiction: its a pain in the ass.
Every morning, I wake up bleary-eyed and exhausted, no matter how fulfilling a night's sleep I gave myself. The only cure for this? I'm drinking it right now, and even as I type, I can feel the warmth flooding my brain, the world slowly resolving itself into some semblance of sensibility, and the day's tasks turning from vague and terrifying prospects into a clear and ordered list. Sure enough, after a couple hours, the fog comes creeping back in, and I run for another cup like a rat with a fucking lever. This continues until about four or five p.m., when I crash hard, and no cuppa Joe can save me.
Addiction: its a pain in the ass.
The beginning
Because I have so much time on my hands--what with school, music, and attempting to have a social life--I figured it would be time to pretend that people care enough about me to read my ramblings on a semi-regular basis. So here's to hoping the blogosphere (I really detest that word) welcomes me with open arms.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)