Hmmm, being in Australia with it's way different timezone always makes it difficult to work out which daylog I should post in ...

Anyway, today is pretty cool - got a call from Triple J (this is the national youth-orientated radio station run by the ABC). Basically, they saw the article that appeared in The Age newspaper about the work that I, and team of students, did in replacing external consultants at my residential College. So in I walked for my pre-recorded interview where we talked for about half an hour about the IT facilities of the College, how we replaced the consultants, how we encourage students to participate etc. The whole time I spoke too fast, stumbled over my words, um'ed and aah'ed - sigh.

I certainly hope they can do some creative editing so that I don't sound so nervous! While I knew my material, I felt it was worse than a job interview - especially as the thought that anything I said (in particular mixing up the words) would be heard on national radio kept running through my head. With thoughts like that, there was no way I could sound calm and collected!!!

Anyway, if you're in Australia, tune into Triple J between from 9am onwards on Wednesday 28th to hear the interview if you're interested.

Added at 16:52: Well the interview sounded okay when it was broadcast. With a bit of editing, I sounded quite good in fact - except that I used the word 'Hey' more than was necessary :-)

futility in a minor

---

----- Original Message -----
To: m******@***.edu
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 2:10 PM
Subject: Flexibility?

Greetings Dr. ******,

My name is ***********. I was a student of *********'s at ********* High School from 1995-1997 and I'm writing this in hopes that you remember me; besides having judged my percussion ensemble on a few occasions, I also received a private lesson from you my junior year in high school on Elliot Carter's "March".

The reason I am writing concerns *** and its music degree program. I enrolled at the ******* and studied composition there as well as privately with ********* in ******** in 1997-1998. It was at that time I had to leave ******** as I started to be afflicted with several muscular and joint problems: carpal tunnel, cubitle tunnel, arthritis, tendonitis, and severe nerve damage. I tried to find flexibility within ********** but I was told that if I could no longer perform as a percussionist, unless I could sing at a college level then I would no longer be able to study there.

I have (over the last few years) spoken to several different universities and conservatories in the US and from almost all of them I have received the same answer: In order to attain a Bachelor's degree from the school of music you must meet the playing requirements, and those requirements are always extensive and severe. I agree that at the university level playing requirements should be rather tough, but in my position I'm desperate to find someone who will deal with me, at least a little.

I want to get a bachelor's degree in composition so that I can go on to grad school and get master's degrees in composition and conducting. My goal is to be a successful composer and if I am to take the university route, the path I have in mind seems the best way to facilitate a good grounding of education. I've been educating myself in theory, counterpoint, forms and music history for the last year or so, adding to the knowledge I had already attained in preparation for a possible return to music school. In six months I'll be ready to hand over a portfolio containing an academic four-part fugue, a sonata, a string quartet and a piece for large orchestra to any music school willing to help me get to a bachelor's degree.

As the head of the percussion department, I wanted to bring this to you and inquire as to what may be done about my situation at ***, or rather, what can I do to facilitate progress towards a degree in composition. I was once a decent percussionist but my medical situation has prevented me from advancing or even retaining that level of performance. I'm more than willing to take on more academic or composition work; I'm willing to take percussion lessons again but until my recent completion of physical therapy last year I was unable to perform even regular daily tasks, let alone play. I haven't played in a few years and while I'm confident it wouldn't take me long to get back to a certain degree of proficiency, I know I would most likely never be able to perform at the regularly expected level of proficiency of a percussion concentrate. The amount of time spent practicing for collegiate-level juries and lessons may prove too great and perhaps too damaging.

I will understand if the university is not flexible in this area but I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask.

******** ********

----- Original Message -----
From: "******** * ******"
To: "'**************
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 2:31 PM
Subject: admissions

Greetings *******.

I do remember you from *******. I am very sorry to hear about your health issues. I have conferred with both the chairman and the head of our composition program here and unfortunately don't have very good news to share with you. As the other universities have communicated, we here at ***** also feel that playing an instrument to a certain degree of proficiency is an important part of the path to becoming a well rounded musician and eventually a composer. The severity of your injury makes it sound as though reaching that degree of proficiency would not be possible. If anything changes in the status of your health situation please re-contact us and I will try to help in any way I can. Until then, I wish you all the best.

Sincerely,

Dr. ******** ******

So, it seems the "guess who's coming to dinner" moment will arrive sometime around March if not sooner.

I talked with sis. Her boyfriend will be visiting from London in March. She hasn't told our parents about him yet. About the fact that he's black. We don't know how they're going to take it. He's also 10 years older and has a kid from a previous marriage.

In Armenian communities, like many small tight-nit ethnic communties, there is pressure to marry within the group. This pressure comes mostly from the older generation who are very concerned with the loss of culture, among many things. As everyone knows, this doesn't always work out. Many do marry an odar (definitions: stranger, foreigner, non-Armenian). It's not an uncommon event. But this could be different. And it will definitely be talk of the community when it gets out.

The two are very much in love. There is no other way to describe it. No other description or words are necessary.

And it's a beautiful thing.

And people will give crap about it.

And there will be many who will accept it.

So come next month a lot of things will be tested.

I'm expecting the best.

---

Update: it turns out it wasn't a marriage. just a relationship that went wrong for him.

to do

• work (and actually get stuff done)
• repot neanthabella
• reposition growlight over dracaena
• check mail
• go to jenn's
• vacuum
• steam clean

my mailman yells at me. i check the box about once a month. i pay all my bills online -- they're mostly static payments for rent, car (only one more payment!!), insurance, student loan, etc. only a few are different each month. so the mailbox tends to get full really quickly. last summer, he told me to put a note in the box, specifying first class mail and periodicals only. being the lazy girl i am, i never did. a few times he's been at the mailbox as i come home from work. i make up lame excuses -- i travel a lot for work, yadda yadda. he's finally just stopped putting the crap mail in. he still yells at me when he sees me though.

i finally came home today to find cozmo still in his cage. the rigged crate lock worked. i like my dog again.

---

Got a gift at work. A silver box, on which was written "EVERY JOB IS A SELF-PORTRAIT OF THE PERSON WHO DID IT. AUTOGRAPH YOUR WORK WITH EXCELLENCE". Inside are a pen which says "INTEGRITY" and a pencil which says "CHARACTER". A fairly mindless corporate gift, but a nice gesture.

I went to my first nightclub last weekend. It was an interesting expierence, to say the least. The occasion was to celebrate my wife's best friend's birthday, and as such we had a full evening out.
It started off with dinner at a nice cajun restruant. We then traveled to a bar called the Pheonix, which has an excelent jazz pianist who plays on Saturday nights. After several hours there, I drove the party ( Yes, I was the designated driver. ) to a club called the Cabaret. It was interesting. You see, the cabaret is a 'family' establishment. I didn't have any problems in going, and would go again, and frankly I have to admit that many gay men dance a whole lot better than I do, that's for damn sure. I had one hell of a fun time, even being the only sober person in the entire place.

I spent most of the day looking forward to something I ended up not enjoying, only to fall asleep at Aaron's house until just moments ago.

School dragged by, slow as ever. AP Art was slightly interesting, I suppose, seeing as how we were allowed to work almost completely uninterrupted. That is, after Mrs. Propst gave her usual half-hour lecture on nothing and everything. Each day these lectures are different, but every day they are meaningless and a waste of valuable studio time. For example, while I was painting, she decided to sit down behind me and carry on a monolog about the corruptness of society in concern to its attentiveness to physical beauty. I'm sure this one-sided conversation was rooted in the subject of my semester concentration, which happens to involve some personal crap, and yet I found myself slightly irritated at the disturbance in my work.

AP Stats was almost unbearable. Although I find null and alternative hypotheses beyond thrilling, I could not keep my eyes open long enough to follow through the process of finding the probability of a Type II Error. We got our quizzes back today as well, which I scored 100% on. That grade just doesn't have the same thrill it used to posses; I remember when I used to get good grades and feel proud. Now I just feel like I could have done better.

Lunch consisted of a very demented bagel and several starburst candies. I found my brother in the hallway on my way to the lunch line (I was too cold to walk to my car and drive to Taco Bell). He told me to hold out my hand. I did. He filled it with a small pile of large while pills looking similar to asprin. He said to take care of them for him. I just put them in my pocket and hoped he wouldn't notice when I flushed them at the first opportunity.

I spent most of the half hour sitting in the hall down by my locker in the science wing studying for our AP Psych test coming up fifth hour. I read over the volumes of notes and various other informational material until I felt full of knowledge to a higher degree. Bobby came and found me around five minutes before the bell rang. We sat in the hall and spoke of the memorable times back in the day in FST with Mrs. Bruns. Those were certainly miserable moments to last a lifetime.

The test went well. The essay was simple enough, asking for a description of Piaget's Theory about cognitive development. We had had this drilled into our heads for a week, so it wasn't very challenging. I think I got maybe two questions out of a million wrong. I feel like I do no work in this class, and yet I have the highest average out of all 115 students taking it. Studying consists of most the lunch hour before the test spent rereading notes. My homework is done during class right before we hand it in. I spend most the class gossiping with Big Norm, another buddy from the FST days. Whatever works, I guess.

I talked to my seventh hour teacher before the bell rang and explained that I needed to leave an hour and fifteen minutes before class actually ended. Being the reliable student I am, she didn't even ask what for. I sat through announcements and the read aloud time, and then I was off to do what I had been looking forward to do all day.

I got over to Aaron's house at about 1:30. We left for Tim's about an hour later or so, which was a deviation from the original plan of spending a quiet afternoon together. Aaron had promised Tim he'd come over, but never thought of the fact that he has no car on this side of the state. So I drove all the way out to New Holland and then out past the highway when we caught up with the boys. I had never been to Tim's house before, and I don't think I'll go again.

It was a mess. There were not only cats everywhere, but there was also a large, unclean, dreadlocked dog named Muffy in the basement who could not be touched because of her pains.She was a scary, buckis sight to see. I hate seeing animals in pain and uncared for, and that's definitely what she was. I offered to give her a bath on the spot, even though I've never met he before. Tim said no, she couldn't be touched without falling over.

One of the cats spent the entire time we were there with its bum in the air, meowing incessantly for someone or something to do her. I found it disgusting yet hilarious. We locked her in the other room, but we could still hear the piercing wails of a cat in heat.

Aaron and Tim played around with their musical things. I was left to sit amongst a group of strangers who had no interest in making me feel welcome. I sat in a living room filled with clothes, video games, a three foot tall hookah on the coffee table, and several overflowing ash trays. I was all alone except for two guys I've never seen before. When some questionable activity started, I decided to take off and leave Aaron to fend for himself. As I was walking out the door, a bunch of other people were walking in. I was glad to leave the madness behind, even if I had been looking forward to spending time with Aaron all day.

I went back to his house over on Lakewood and fell asleep until ten o'clock. I guess this must have been a sign that I need to sleep at night more often. Perhaps I will.

My car is filthy again. I just had it washed on Saturday in a fit of vanity. Granted, it was only the $4 express wash that left lots of dishwasher spots, but hell, it was still clean. Now it's streaked with dirt. Keeping my car clean is an impossible task, I think. Things that don't help include the fact that it's white, the oak tree in the yard, and the bird that uses my driver's side mirror as a perch. But at least it wasn't like that idiot I saw on the way to work who wrote (in shoe polish? Grease pencil?) "For Sale" in big letters on his windshield. I can't stand dirt obscuring my view, how the hell do you drive with your own phone number staring you in the face?

A dull day at work. Rehersal for Lysistrata afterwards. I got involved with this last week when we did a reading in class for kicks, and I got recruited for a role in the presentation for this week's Classics Forum, or whatever they're calling it. I must confess that I volunteered to read in class in hopes of precisely this happening. So now I'm the constable or the commissioner or the magistrate or however you want to translate that.

Doesn't everyone want to be a star sometime in their life? I was always too shy and stricken with stage fright to manage anything more than Freddy Flouride in Grade 5. But getting in front of a classroom quickly cured my stage fright years ago, and my theatrical teaching style and my Abbie Hoffman like prank runs for student government president make me think that I have a frustrated actor hiding inside of me. Or at least an attention starved inner child. I'm wondering if now is the time to let whatever it is out.

We have no costumes, no sets, no chorus, and the scene is on Friday. Oh, joy. But we did the best we could. It's being performed by a small (it's me and three of them in the play), independent student theater troupe, so no assistance from the theater department, which can be notoriously territorial.

It's been a while since I've hung out with actors. There was a time when I fancied myself a playwright, but the less said about that the better. I was reminded and humbled about how much talent and effort can go into acting. I was amazed at how quickly and skillfully Greg, the troupe's leader and the one playing Lysistrata, went over the script, cutting and reworking lines, creating the blocking, instructing the three of us.

I have some natural talent, I suppose. For one, a loud, projecting voice I developed in the classroom. And years of closely reading literary texts makes it easier for me to instinctively grasp how to deliver a line, changing inflections and inserting dramatic pauses. Beyond that, I suck. I can't remember my lines or and I keep forgetting the blocking. I probably can't act worth a damn.

I'm not nervous so much as concerned. I have people depending on me, not to mention the opportunity I might have here. I will not fuck this up. I will not fuck this up. I will not fuck this up...

This is the year I'm going to give up soda for Lent. It's going to be great, I'm super excited. I've already been through my withdrawal stage when I was prostrate with food poisoning last week. I couldn't even keep water down, much less a carbonated beverage. I've worked myself back up to Diet Coke though and as I type this I'm sipping a 20 ounce of it, the last soda I will have until Easter (except on Sundays, because if you're Catholic, Sundays don't count in Lent, or at least I've been told this).

Kimonade and I have a bet going. I'm giving up soda, she's giving up talking about how much she needs sex all the time. I know that she'll cave before I do, and when she does, she buys me dinner at Carlos O'Kelley's. I can't wait until tomorrow night. :)

Today I decided that I'm incredibly too obsessed with the book I'm reading right now.
This may not seem like a big deal, but to me, it's important, there are a great number of books on my "Books that Rule" list (this is a real list, in one of my journals), and I've officially decided to add The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (by Tom Wolfe) to the list that includes books like Catch-22, Vurt, Pollen, Automated Alice, The Catcher in the Rye, and many other books that rule.
Anyhow, this is the first time I've ever added a book to the list before I even finished the book, but I feel that it deserves it. Unless something terrible happens, like Ken Kesey (the main person in the book) wakes up and it all was a big dream, I'll keep it on there.

I'd suggest the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test to anyone... anyone, read it.

There is a blanket of fog hanging low over the San Fernando Valley tonight. It reminds me of the skies in London and San Francisco that I love so much. There's been a great deal of rain here lately, but I don't mind. I imagine Los Angeles needs to wash herself of many, many sins. Perhaps the rain will help her with that.

I got my grad check in the mail today. In a mere four months, I will become a college graduate. It sure would be nice to know what I'm supposed to do next. Although I'm coming to terms with the fact that life is such a whirlwind that never seems to slow down, I'm still not very happy with it. I know we are always struggling to control our lives more...but mine feels so unstable. It has for a good three years now.

And that doesn't bother me as much as it seems to just annoy me like a paper cut would. I'm beginning to think there's no point in even having long term plans for anything at all, because too many burps in the grand scheme of things always seem to find their way to me. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they suck. In the end, I simply find myself at a place in my life that I never expected to be at.

I'm sure the fates find me hysterical.

Ah well, I'm having a decent amount of fun, I'm just constantly wondering what on earth comes next...

There's more to life than this...

So, maybe I'm not cured.

It happened again, even though I'm trying to distance myself from it at least a little bit.

It's funny too, things seemed to be going so well about 3 weeks ago. What destabalized things? What got me thinking that she was trying to push me away? I might not ever know, because it's too late to contemplate that... Things changed so quickly.

Now . . . I'm getting closer and clsoer to being with another person. It's tough for me to feel, let alone know how I feel about that person. I know how I feel about her, but . . the other I'm not sure about. And I *need* to make a choice. All I know is what I don't want.

Bjork kicks ass. Great to listen too after a week-long nin kick... BTW, bj0rk 0wnz j00

So my life's not falling apart. Yet. Work's going ok, life in general isn't going that bad... I need sleep. I gotta pee. And my contacts are so dry I can barely blink... Later e2.

I tried to explain what a slacker was yesterday to one of my co-workers after she commented on how prompt I am with completing my assignments. I told her it wasn't true that I am really a very lazy person, a slacker, and that I was just good at pretending I was a good worker. She didn't seem to buy the idea, which makes me wonder about my job security.

I don't want to lose my job, or more precisely, when my contract ends I want it to be renewed. For 3 reasons:

1.
I'm making a whopping $1600 a month plus free lunches and other benefits (such as free office supplies, free mail {even DHL overnight to the sates}, free etc.)

2.
I want to continue to remain in Europe until my girlfriend, Kristi, finishes university

3.
I want to continue to remain in Europe because of the wonderful vacation opportunities (It's a lot easier to fly to Morroco or Budapest or London or see the beaches of Greece, Amalfi Coast or Sardegnia from where I live and work in Torino).

So I've had a little job aniety lately, mostly because I'm only being praised for my efforts. It seems much too easy, like ... I don't know but I'm thinking of how Luke Skywalker must have felt in ESB when Yoda suprizes the shit out of him. I'm just waiting for the suprize ...

____________________________________________________

In addition it started snowing yesterday and hasn't stopped yet. This is only the 3rd snow duing my stay here in Torino and it's the largest one yet. I wned out this morning armed with my Konika motorwinder and some black and white, but after 3 frames the camera froze. I rewond the film and luckilly I was only a block from my place, so I went back upstairs and grabbed the Minolta with the 35-135 lense and headed back out with a roll of 100 ASA Kodachrome slide film. Shot off a few caps on the way to work...

______________________________________________________

When dentists get a taste of their own medicine...

My boss and I took out each other's wisdom tooth after the patients left this evening.

My upper right third molar had been causing pain over the last few days - it was sore to open my mouth, and painful while eating. I've been eating ice cream to soothe it. His wisdom tooth was also playing up and he is a grown man of 42!

Gee... if I hurt you, you'll get your revenge afterwards.
I'm not stupid, why do you think I went first!

So, I numbed him up. He chose not to have topical anaesthesia. The palatal injection hurt. And it caused his left eye to tear (apparently, a parasympathetic response to getting LA). We were discussing the anatomy of the posterior superior alveolar maxillary nerve, and the greater and lesser palatine nerves. This wisdom tooth popped out after a bit of fiddling with the Couplands elevator - single rooted.

He used two different types of topical anaesthesia on me: 10% lignocaine cream and 20% benzocaine gel. The injections hurt a little, and there was one area of gingiva that did not go numb. I guess it was because it was very inflamed. Tooth came out with a crack - he broke a root tip. There were 3 roots on my wisdom tooth. Oh joy - nobody's going to go hunting for that little root tip.

It was great because we exchanged techniques and we experienced it from the patient's perspective. The best fun I've had in awhile.

I'm going to keep that tooth with me all the time so that I'll always be technically fully dentate! I can't bear to be partially edentulous.

I had a rough day at work, didn't get much done - but my pc was fscked up, and after an hour on the phone with Gateway, the previous hour spent moving files to the network and reformatting the pc, I guess it's no wonder. My Cd-writer still doesn't work. Ack. Now I get to move everything back over.

And I was sad yesterday, which makes it difficult to get things done; after all, who cares? I finally left work and drove to the health club - it's taken me weeks to go back there. I hate exercise but of course, when I drag myself there, feel so much better after. It was supposed to be a Pilates class but the sub taught Power Yoga. Awesome. I did things I didn't think I could do! Balancing on one foot for minutes, stretching and stretching. Very cool. I felt very happy after, the little endorphins were apparently running all over my body.

I had spent almost the entire hour before talking - well, listening - on my cell phone with V., my OA sponsee. She's so depressed, it's difficult sometimes to not shake her and say "wake the fuck up! You can change!" Anyway - I just listened. She was very glad I called, so that was good. But the really good thing about it was that I spent an hour caring about some one else, forgetting my problems. And that was really helpful.

This is not to say that I support such a thing, but certainly, if you wanted to go on a massive christian-killing spree, this would be the day to do it with a good deal of accuracy.

Happy Ash Wednesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hooray!

Today is my Birthday. I am 26 years old today.

I sometime feel I screwed up my life. I had several scholarships to college that I refused; I was not mature enough to go to college. I joined the US Navy instead, got married, then promptly divorced, all before age 20.

Is lif better now? Now that I am 26?

What do I want from life? I am (relatively) happy. I don't really want anything more than what I have.

I am 26, and I have no goals.

Anyway.

I got the cologne I like best from my wife, as well as a black shirt and black pants. No parties. She and I will go out sans kids on Friday.

God is in the details:
The faintest glow on the very edge of a single wing
Of a butterfly 
Powdery
Sweet and golden with sunshine

Or
The most subtle shade of green as it is seen
From a certain window
On a certain meadow
In a certain light

The incandescence of sand grains
Perfect as they are infinite
When you find but a few at the bottom of the bath
A reminder, sharp and sweet
Of beaches rolled on and sweat
That glided down a dappled flank and pooled
In a tawny navel

And the clouds
Heavy uncaring cold
Laden 
Bearing heavy days
I let them caress the top of my head and remember
God is
In the details.

Wow, I got my diploma today in the mail. Upon recommendation of the University Senate and approval of the Board of Trustees, the President of the University of Kentucky conferred on me the degree of Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. Wow, crazy, man. I actually finished classes in August 2000. As usual, I put off doing the paperwork to actually graduate until the very last day. So after getting home I wasn't totally sure I'd really graduated. I later got assurance from my advisor that everything looked ok. But I wasn't 100% sure until today. I thought I had like a $5 library fee, at least. Anyways, regardless of the disillusionment of college, I was surprised at how much getting that piece of paper affected me. Wow, I'm really done with school. After, what? 17 years of education? Now, if I could only get a real job...

Pay Day!

I have a little extra money now. Yay!

Yesterday, I went to the Japanese grocery store, and I picked up the Japanese