thesis pieces
now this is what college is all about. tomorrow, for my grad course, i am to give a 30 minute presentation to my one classmate and my professor. my topic? rachmaninov's playing of his own prelude no. 5, opus 23, versus the performances of this prelude by ten other pianists since his death. i've probably listened to this prelude upwards of 150 times today. maybe not 150 times in totality, but i've heard the same section repeated time after time after time to figure it out so often that my play count must be in the triple digits. today, i just listened to piece over and over, as played by these eleven different people, and formed opinions and wrote notes on them.
in my constant effort to be a better student, as well as my constant effort to capitalize on my nocturnal sleeping schedule by doing work at all hours of the morning, i find myself in the cowell computer lab at 5:00 in the morning. i have a 30-minute presentation that is due tomorrow evening. however, i have a 10-page paper on the same topic due on monday. i think my teacher thought he'd be doing us a favor by spacing them out, but i think i want to just get it all done in one fell swoop and turn my damn paper in tomorrow.
after drinking enough coffee and tea to give myself diarrhea for a week, i drove into santa cruz at 2:30, parked in a 10-minute zone, and made my way to the cowell computer lab, which is open 24 hours a day. why am i doing this? because i needed to use online resources like wikipedia, and the internet at my house is about at finicky as a pregnant woman picking out ice cream.
so here i've been, analyzing and writing for the last two hours and some minutes, and i've actually not let myself down. i've done the harder portion of the paper already, the biography on rachmaninov and the analysis of his own recording of the piece. now, i'm six pages deep, and i'm only beginning to talk about the other ten recordings. as long as i don't sleep past noon tomorrow, finishing this thing (and being prepared to give a dope lecture) in time to go to my 5:00 accounting class should be a cinch.
...the exciting thing about this paper is, it's the first time i've had total freedom to pick a topic, and for the first time ever, i'm starting to be able to imagine the type of involvement and dedication a thesis or dissertation would take. it's frightening, but i really want to go there. i can't wait until i get to a point where i'm actually spending time delving into a subject and writing about it as thoroughly as i'm writing about this prelude. i'm actually really proud of my ability, so far, to be intelligent and insightful, while still maintaining my own personal style and wit. i'm still working on the hybridization of the patrick writing style with the academic writing style, but i think that the marriage has a future.
patrick's recommended download of the day: the arcade fire: no cars go. a relic off their first, self-released EP, the arcade fire just released a new recording of this song on their [great] new album, neon bible. this is maybe my favorite arcade fire song of all time, so i'm pretty satisfied with that.
joy of the day: being able to find internal personal satisfaction in difficult work.
heart
patrick
in my constant effort to be a better student, as well as my constant effort to capitalize on my nocturnal sleeping schedule by doing work at all hours of the morning, i find myself in the cowell computer lab at 5:00 in the morning. i have a 30-minute presentation that is due tomorrow evening. however, i have a 10-page paper on the same topic due on monday. i think my teacher thought he'd be doing us a favor by spacing them out, but i think i want to just get it all done in one fell swoop and turn my damn paper in tomorrow.
after drinking enough coffee and tea to give myself diarrhea for a week, i drove into santa cruz at 2:30, parked in a 10-minute zone, and made my way to the cowell computer lab, which is open 24 hours a day. why am i doing this? because i needed to use online resources like wikipedia, and the internet at my house is about at finicky as a pregnant woman picking out ice cream.
so here i've been, analyzing and writing for the last two hours and some minutes, and i've actually not let myself down. i've done the harder portion of the paper already, the biography on rachmaninov and the analysis of his own recording of the piece. now, i'm six pages deep, and i'm only beginning to talk about the other ten recordings. as long as i don't sleep past noon tomorrow, finishing this thing (and being prepared to give a dope lecture) in time to go to my 5:00 accounting class should be a cinch.
...the exciting thing about this paper is, it's the first time i've had total freedom to pick a topic, and for the first time ever, i'm starting to be able to imagine the type of involvement and dedication a thesis or dissertation would take. it's frightening, but i really want to go there. i can't wait until i get to a point where i'm actually spending time delving into a subject and writing about it as thoroughly as i'm writing about this prelude. i'm actually really proud of my ability, so far, to be intelligent and insightful, while still maintaining my own personal style and wit. i'm still working on the hybridization of the patrick writing style with the academic writing style, but i think that the marriage has a future.
patrick's recommended download of the day: the arcade fire: no cars go. a relic off their first, self-released EP, the arcade fire just released a new recording of this song on their [great] new album, neon bible. this is maybe my favorite arcade fire song of all time, so i'm pretty satisfied with that.
joy of the day: being able to find internal personal satisfaction in difficult work.
heart
patrick