Four good things...
Hi everybody.
1. I just got back from the weekend at Golden Bay. It's about a seven hour drive from here, and I went up to play second oboe in Handel's Messiah. It was actually a very moving and almost transcendental experience for me. The orchestra was very small (2 oboes, 1 bassoon, 8 violins, 2 violas, 1 cello, 1 bass, 2 trumpets and a harpsichord!) which made the whole thing very challenging. You're very exposed with that - if you cock up, EVERYONE IN THE WORLD can hear. There were about 100 people in the choir. We didn't play the whole thing, but it was still about 2 and a half hours of really challenging, beautiful music. It's a lovely thing, playing music together just for the pleasure of it. We had two concerts - after the second, we played the Hallelujah chorus as an encore, and the audience all sang it also. For me this was the coolest moment. A whole hall full of people standing and singing, and a small group of us in the middle sitting playing, and this fantastic music, and such a sense of community and I guess, joy. I cried a little bit, because it wasn't religious, not really, just... very human.
2. I finished mini-nano, and I wrote at least 500 words a day, every day, with a grand total of just over 24,000 words. There's still a lot of editing to be done on it (that's the part of the process that takes me ages and ages) and I haven't reached the end of the story yet. I'm thinking it will end up still around 24,000 though - there's some words in there that aren't purely necessary. I feel a great sense of achievement about this. Really, I still don't know if this is how I write the best, but I love that I made the commitment and did it. As did A LOT of other people. Yay comm!
3. Erhum. My thesis is being published in book form by a German publisher who specialises in academic writing in the sciences and humanities. It will be a monograph, which means that it needs very little further editing from me, but will appear basically in the form it is now. I can't even... believe this. They publish MANY theses a year, and it's not like they're Routledge or *insert big name publisher here*. BUT I will receive 12% of royalties and be available on Amazon. Libraries may buy me. And it's a real book. *flails* I think this comes third in the list of three because I'm feeling quite shy about it, and I don't want to jinx it. It's especially nice to be accepted after the horrible time I had writing it (much of which inspired Dean-in-hell for me :-D). So... YES. BOOK. OMG.
4. I graduate in two weeks. BRING ON FUNNY OUTFIT AND PROCESSIONS. Funnily enough, ex-Vice-CHancellor-and-evil-attempter-to-disestablish-our-department Roy Sharp is going to be giving the speech at the ceremony. UGH. I was saying to my supervisor Peter that I wish I could just go and accept my degree and flip Roy Sharp the bird, and Peter said that having me and George (who is also graduating PhD) there graduating after the year we've had is bird-flipping enough. SUCK ON IT, ROY. We're not dead yet.
*hugs everyone in sight*
1. I just got back from the weekend at Golden Bay. It's about a seven hour drive from here, and I went up to play second oboe in Handel's Messiah. It was actually a very moving and almost transcendental experience for me. The orchestra was very small (2 oboes, 1 bassoon, 8 violins, 2 violas, 1 cello, 1 bass, 2 trumpets and a harpsichord!) which made the whole thing very challenging. You're very exposed with that - if you cock up, EVERYONE IN THE WORLD can hear. There were about 100 people in the choir. We didn't play the whole thing, but it was still about 2 and a half hours of really challenging, beautiful music. It's a lovely thing, playing music together just for the pleasure of it. We had two concerts - after the second, we played the Hallelujah chorus as an encore, and the audience all sang it also. For me this was the coolest moment. A whole hall full of people standing and singing, and a small group of us in the middle sitting playing, and this fantastic music, and such a sense of community and I guess, joy. I cried a little bit, because it wasn't religious, not really, just... very human.
2. I finished mini-nano, and I wrote at least 500 words a day, every day, with a grand total of just over 24,000 words. There's still a lot of editing to be done on it (that's the part of the process that takes me ages and ages) and I haven't reached the end of the story yet. I'm thinking it will end up still around 24,000 though - there's some words in there that aren't purely necessary. I feel a great sense of achievement about this. Really, I still don't know if this is how I write the best, but I love that I made the commitment and did it. As did A LOT of other people. Yay comm!
3. Erhum. My thesis is being published in book form by a German publisher who specialises in academic writing in the sciences and humanities. It will be a monograph, which means that it needs very little further editing from me, but will appear basically in the form it is now. I can't even... believe this. They publish MANY theses a year, and it's not like they're Routledge or *insert big name publisher here*. BUT I will receive 12% of royalties and be available on Amazon. Libraries may buy me. And it's a real book. *flails* I think this comes third in the list of three because I'm feeling quite shy about it, and I don't want to jinx it. It's especially nice to be accepted after the horrible time I had writing it (much of which inspired Dean-in-hell for me :-D). So... YES. BOOK. OMG.
4. I graduate in two weeks. BRING ON FUNNY OUTFIT AND PROCESSIONS. Funnily enough, ex-Vice-CHancellor-and-evil-attempter-to-disestablish-our-department Roy Sharp is going to be giving the speech at the ceremony. UGH. I was saying to my supervisor Peter that I wish I could just go and accept my degree and flip Roy Sharp the bird, and Peter said that having me and George (who is also graduating PhD) there graduating after the year we've had is bird-flipping enough. SUCK ON IT, ROY. We're not dead yet.
*hugs everyone in sight*