required graduation post
Well, commencement was a little more stressful and a little less fun than I would have hoped, but it was still pretty cool to walk through the Old Queen's gate in my fancy Rutgers College cap and gown with the honors cord on :3 It was really beautiful outside in the quad where commencement was, with the sunlight streaming through the trees and everything. At least I had that. I didn't get pictures with friends though, and I am angry about that. =| It seems like half of the purpose of commencement is the picture taking, and that was a huge failure. oh well.
I got pretty dicked over for this independent study I was doing about 20th century koto music, but my advisor wants me to get it published this summer, so that's good at least. I managed to get a 3.557 cumulative GPA despite that C! yessss
My family is getting me my first drumset as a graudation present!!! It's going to be so great to finally have one. I'm a little bit overwhelmed by all the different kinds of cymbals, but I'm fairly sure I either want the Gretsch Catalina Club Jazz set or the DDrum DBop set for the drums. It's fun to shop for drums because of all the choices, but at the same time it's depressing how fast all the money adds up. You can easily spend 1500 dollars on a set without even going crazy. Every single part of a drumset is expensive. I think my mom is going to be grumpy about how much we spend on this no matter what, because she thought we could get a decent complete kit for 800 bucks. Not gonna happen, unless it's out of somebody's basement =\ I might try to buy used cymbals though. It could be a good choice as long as they're not cracked.
This summer I want to "catch up" with all the practicing I had to forego this past semester. I want to really get good at marimba and piano, and start kicking ass on drumset. I mean, I can definitely get by on drumset reading out of a book in a musical, but I want to feel totally comfortable sight-reading like I do with my other stuff. Of course I have to get a job soon, but my mom agreed to let me have some time to be productive instead of just wasting every day at Chik-Fil-A for chump change. I also want to get out and see some friends now that I will finally be driving. I have to take the test and get my license, but that shouldn't be a problem. Mom keeps sending me out driving around town anyway, and it's fairly easy.
I don't really feel like I am ready to completely be done with school forever yet. I wouldn't be surprised if I went to grad school, even though I'm not jumping up and down to go right now. I haven't even decided which field I would want to study. I'm definitely not against getting a master's in Japanese linguistics, or maybe even Eastern musicology. That paper I did was really kind of fun and exciting in a way, and I'm not sure I would really be all that happy if I never did research like that again. I am sort of afraid though, of just being an academic and giving up on performing. That would be like giving up, wouldn't it?
Then there's Japan of course. Who knows when that's going to happen. Jobs are getting harder and harder to get over there, and it's not like I have money to just go visit for a week or two. Ugh. I want to go so bad though, and see my friends again. I have let a lot of friends come and go at Rutgers, but I never felt the pain of separation like I did with my friends in Japan. I need to see them. It's absolutely vital.
Was my college life everything I thought it would be in high school? I'm not really sure. I definitely did more than I thought I would, and worked harder than I thought I would in some ways, but I still didn't really get into a clique of friends that I hung out with all the time. I still managed to just be a guest star in a lot of other peoples' groups and wasn't fully included in any of them, no matter what I tried to do. People still enjoy my company when I'm there and then completely forget about me when I'm not there. I hate that. It'll only get worse now that we're not having classes together anymore, and now that it takes real effort to stay in touch. I have a feeling I will very quickly go from being "popular" to being all alone. Though, having a car is going to make a huge, huge difference. It's a lot harder to expect people to see me if it always has to be them driving to Moorestown or me taking a train. Though I don't want to have to do all the driving every time. We'll have to have some kind of parity.
A lot of people at Rutgers who were not graduating with me were completely nonchalant about my leaving, and didn't bother making any kind of big goodbyes. It was "oh I'll see you later." I asked a friend why everybody is being like that, and he said "because we know you'll still be around." I don't know how true that really is, but maybe it is. Who knows.
I got pretty dicked over for this independent study I was doing about 20th century koto music, but my advisor wants me to get it published this summer, so that's good at least. I managed to get a 3.557 cumulative GPA despite that C! yessss
My family is getting me my first drumset as a graudation present!!! It's going to be so great to finally have one. I'm a little bit overwhelmed by all the different kinds of cymbals, but I'm fairly sure I either want the Gretsch Catalina Club Jazz set or the DDrum DBop set for the drums. It's fun to shop for drums because of all the choices, but at the same time it's depressing how fast all the money adds up. You can easily spend 1500 dollars on a set without even going crazy. Every single part of a drumset is expensive. I think my mom is going to be grumpy about how much we spend on this no matter what, because she thought we could get a decent complete kit for 800 bucks. Not gonna happen, unless it's out of somebody's basement =\ I might try to buy used cymbals though. It could be a good choice as long as they're not cracked.
This summer I want to "catch up" with all the practicing I had to forego this past semester. I want to really get good at marimba and piano, and start kicking ass on drumset. I mean, I can definitely get by on drumset reading out of a book in a musical, but I want to feel totally comfortable sight-reading like I do with my other stuff. Of course I have to get a job soon, but my mom agreed to let me have some time to be productive instead of just wasting every day at Chik-Fil-A for chump change. I also want to get out and see some friends now that I will finally be driving. I have to take the test and get my license, but that shouldn't be a problem. Mom keeps sending me out driving around town anyway, and it's fairly easy.
I don't really feel like I am ready to completely be done with school forever yet. I wouldn't be surprised if I went to grad school, even though I'm not jumping up and down to go right now. I haven't even decided which field I would want to study. I'm definitely not against getting a master's in Japanese linguistics, or maybe even Eastern musicology. That paper I did was really kind of fun and exciting in a way, and I'm not sure I would really be all that happy if I never did research like that again. I am sort of afraid though, of just being an academic and giving up on performing. That would be like giving up, wouldn't it?
Then there's Japan of course. Who knows when that's going to happen. Jobs are getting harder and harder to get over there, and it's not like I have money to just go visit for a week or two. Ugh. I want to go so bad though, and see my friends again. I have let a lot of friends come and go at Rutgers, but I never felt the pain of separation like I did with my friends in Japan. I need to see them. It's absolutely vital.
Was my college life everything I thought it would be in high school? I'm not really sure. I definitely did more than I thought I would, and worked harder than I thought I would in some ways, but I still didn't really get into a clique of friends that I hung out with all the time. I still managed to just be a guest star in a lot of other peoples' groups and wasn't fully included in any of them, no matter what I tried to do. People still enjoy my company when I'm there and then completely forget about me when I'm not there. I hate that. It'll only get worse now that we're not having classes together anymore, and now that it takes real effort to stay in touch. I have a feeling I will very quickly go from being "popular" to being all alone. Though, having a car is going to make a huge, huge difference. It's a lot harder to expect people to see me if it always has to be them driving to Moorestown or me taking a train. Though I don't want to have to do all the driving every time. We'll have to have some kind of parity.
A lot of people at Rutgers who were not graduating with me were completely nonchalant about my leaving, and didn't bother making any kind of big goodbyes. It was "oh I'll see you later." I asked a friend why everybody is being like that, and he said "because we know you'll still be around." I don't know how true that really is, but maybe it is. Who knows.