So it's Saturday night and I should go to bed, but I delved into the Nutella- since I don't have any actual food in my room. Eating chocolate before bed is a bad idea. I'm wide awake, and exhausted. My parents are probably groaning as they read this. Let's not talk about that... lol

So finals are coming up. Again. More importantly however is jury week. This Tuesday I will have to perform for a group of judges who will decide weather or not I have a future at this school. 

I'll be fine if I don't freak out the way I did at studio class today. That was scary... 

That incident was a combination of pent up everything, stress, fatigue, poor diet, poorer exercising, in-practice, the reed (which was awesome just a few days ago), lack of electrolytes and this wicked adrenaline rush that left me shaking beyond control. It was so intense.

But after I calmed down again it was better. I need to play for more people.

So, I spent about 12 hours on this thing here at Eastman we call a Listening Module.

You listen so some pieces and write in prose a series of theoretical observations and then elaborate on them and how they affect the piece as a whole. You also try to give your ideas on the what music means and how it effected you.  (yes affect and effect- am I using them correctly?) So I spend every available free minute on this listening module, and complete it the day before it's due. Wow how diligent am I? It only made me sacrifice much valuable practice time, added much undue stress, and prevented me from thinking about anything else. Well at least it was done on time right? Wrong. The day it's due we all hear from the head honcho of the theory dept. that there has been an extension on the due date of this listening module because it is unreasonable to ask for this assignment right before juries. Un huh. Too bad I already spent my jury practicing time on this bleeping module. 12 hours? What could you do with that time? Yet another example of the smooth function of the great cogs running this well oiled clock that we benefit from. No no, I'm not complaining. How could I possibly hold faculty up to the demands that they place on us, the underling students? 

German is tough, but you know what's tougher? MUSIC THEORY!!! oh wait.. I meant to say English... lol... whoops....

I feel really bad for those who didn't grow up with English as a native language, because it is a series of broken rules, exceptions, irregular verbs and run-on clauses. (oh wait, that's my blog... lolz)

I heard our native german teacher say an english phrase in which she made what should have been an adjective, an adverb. And why not? It was seemingly modifying the verb... except it wasn't really. It was the weirdest thing, because when you try to figure out why it's wrong, it's hard to explain. 

It appears to be modifying the verb. So if I said; "That sweater goes nicely with those pants." That would be a grammatically correct statement. However, if I said "That sweater looks nicely with those pants." That would be wrong... how 

do you explain to someone on the spot why that was wrong?  :D

It boils down to how the verb functions in the sentence. 

I think we can say without a shadow of a doubt that "goes nicely" is correct. The adverb modifies the verb (in this case) and the knee joint connects to the hip joint and so on.

However, does the adverb "nicely" really want to modify the verb "looks?" 

Well let's see, if your sweater had eyes and was in the habit of looking at things, it would be ok to say that it "looks nicely " however if you want to say that the sweater itself is nice in appearance, then you would say "That sweater looks nice with those pants." 

The word "looks" is not what you are trying to modify, you are in fact trying to modify "sweater." This is why you need an adjective (which modifies nouns or pronouns) instead an adverb (which modifies verbs, adjectives or other adverbs)

These two sentences "goes nicely" and "looks nice" both mean (virtually) the same thing. 

Grammar grammar... tisk tisk

You'd think I'd have more to say about the bassoon at this point... 

I hate reeds.

Beyond that, just pray that I totally trash (in an awesome way) my jury and kick butt on these finals. 

The Nutella is slowly wearing off and there are an increasing amount of typos in my writing...

Church is tomorrow and every new day brings a new adventure. 

Getting up and being on time are adventure enough for me. One day I'll figure out how to do it. :p 

Can't wait to see CA again and my fabulously family. 

yes. just to bug you.

This is my Quintet at Eastman which never actually got a name, thought I pushed for Quordal 5th, it never stuck. This is our end of the year concert, we played the Nielson Quintet- huge bassoon solo. :D