This is the first morning all week that I haven't woken up with a major headache. (Just a minor one). I have felt like a semi has hit me all week. So after reeling to through the last week of classes last week, I had to gird my loins and cram for two finals on Tuesday. My Symphonic Lit exams are so stressful. There's a listening part and an essay/short answer part. The listening part includes 10 examples. He plays some random part in the middle of the piece, and we have to identify composer, title, mvt number (that's the hardest), the key the piece is in, and the date in which it was written. Even though this part is kind of stressful, it has been an excellent exercise in listening for me.
I'm a musicologist, but I have the hardest time making myself sit down and seriously listen to music. Part of the problem is that I have to either go to the library or check CDs out of the library, wh. I ALWAYS get fines on, no matter how HARD I try to get back in on time...it's the parking thing...I dread going down there because parking is such a headache, and if I managed to avoid library fines, I'll probably end up with a parking ticket. :-S Funny side note, though: I was down at the library paying a fine, and I threw in another nickel saying, "Here, I may as well contribute to the pizza party." (I used to work there, and we had pizza parties with the library fine money.) The guy behind the desk said, "Actually it's Lebanese now." Ha! I love New Orleans.
Okay so we have stressful listening. But then the prof has timed all the answers for the written part of hte exam and that's all hte time he'll give you. There's no time for thinking. You have to go in there and be prepared to write solidly the whole time. And you better have your essay ready to go, because there's no time for construction during hte exam. And he'll grade you like it's an essay: thesis, topic sentences, tight construction. All of this has been excellent. Just makes studying and taking his tests a little more stressful than other of my professor's. There's one prof here for whose exams I never study. I may glance over my notes a couple of times. Then I get her exam and basically can dawdle out an A. (yea, they're kind of hard to take seriously). With the aforementioned stressful professor, I finally feel like I'm in grad school. I'm sure his class will be immensely helpful come general exams time.
My other exam on Tuesday was Latin, and that went fine.
Wednesday I spent all day making a website for my dad, and yesterday I began working at Banana Republic. I had a good first day. I was a little nervous, since I had never worked retail before, and I wouldn't say that I have a natural knack for fashion. For instance, I was helping a customer, and she was talking about this cute bow belt thing that BR has and said "...Yea, and this year is all about accessories..." My response inside was "REALLY!@?", my response outside was, "well, be sure to check out these scarves, too, they can add just the touch of color you need to an outfit." (yea, my fall-back: scarves). But scarves don't seem to be the "thing" this year. There's so many pretty ones at BR, but people on pouncing on belts and bows. I feel so out of my element. But at the same time it's kind of a fun challenge, and definitely forces me to be creative. Like when someone asks me "What do you think would look good over this?" and inside I think "I have no CLUE!" but the nice the about the set-up of the store is that they put things that look good together close together. So if someone asks me that, I do a quick scan and find something fast. In fact, I had huge success with my very first customer, which I was very proud about and gave confidence to my wavering spirit.. She was buying a blouse for her sister's bday, and needed something to go underneath it (because it was see-through). THankfully, the needed tanks were on the shelf right above the blouse. Then I asked her if she thought her sister had something to with the blouse or did she want to complete the outfit. She thought her sister had black pants that would like nice with it. But then I just HAPPENED to be holding beige textured tights that exactly matched the beige print on the black blouse. And so I suggested she could get a skirt with these tights which really brought out the blouse, and the lady got all excited and found the right skirt and got the tights and everything. By hte way, Banana Republic has the coolest tights in this season. So anyway...I guess I'm morphing into a clothes-seller this season. But after 7 hours on the floor my first day, I'm exhausted, and now I have to go down the court house and report for jury duty. Blah, blah. I hope this is over with quickly.
But the choir and the lead vocalist were awful!! The lead sang as if it were opera and not the light, straighter tone that early music requires. And the women's choir had absolutely zero expression. Everything sounded exactly the same, and all the singers were miserably flat. It was actually quite painful to sit through. But now my curiosity is quenched, and I'll continue to ignore their concerts. I have a lot more fun with my early music friends anyway. Tonight I'm going to go play Christmas music with them. It should be a lot of fun. I'm going to bring the treble viol, wh. I've recently been learning. By the way, that is a family of viola da gambas (or viols) pictured from treble to bass. The picture is a little deceiving, the little girl isn't playing a child-sized viol, just the treble viol.