Musical effects

Gods, but I love classical music.  I’m listening to Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 on my iPod while at work, and just the first forty seconds are enough to send chills down my back.  So clear, distant, beautiful, like a winter’s landscape with the sun just about to rise.  Then, at around two minutes, the chills return as the sun bursts into the sky with the brass chorus…

Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 is a rich blue sky filled with towering cumulonimbus clouds – actually, it manages to remind me simultaneously of the Texas Hill Country and a Scandinavian grassland landscape, no mean feat.  But whether Texas or Finland, there is a crisp, fresh breeze embodied in those notes that makes me breathe deeply just to think of it.  That might have something to do with making it my favorite piece of music, given that “blue skies, white clouds, mountains in the distance and breeze rustling the leaves in the trees” pretty much sums up my notion of heaven. 

When I want a sensation pleasantly similar to dropping a bath bomb into my brain, I pop on Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”, which fizzes nicely through the crevices. 

For music that never fails to make me tap or fidget some part of my body in time with the music, Tchaikovsky’s “Capricchio Italien” fits the bill.

And on and on goes the list…  Thank you to both my parents for being so kind as to raise my brother and me on classical music!

Hear, hear

“The debate over whether individual actions matter at all continues, but that is not to say there’s no environmental benefit to be had from reducing energy and water consumption.”

A quote from an article on (where else) NY Times highlighting the growing field of “eco-consulting.”  The rest of the article was kinda blah for me, but at least this quote was reasonable.

::sigh::

My brother directed me to this NY Times article about Reed’s current financial woes.  I have to say, one thing that really bothered me was the mention that Reed intends to move forward with plans for a new performing arts centre… on top of all the other new buildings and new land it has built or bought in the last six years.  Could it be that Reed has stretched too far and needs to reel things back in again?  Is a new performing arts centre *really* more important than admitting the best students, regardless of need?  Some of the most brilliant Reedies I’ve ever encountered would not have been allowed to Reed had it been admitting based on lack of need rather than fitness of match. 

I know that I’m over-simplifying, and I know that a new arts centre will be welcomed by the students and teachers who use it most (and, probably, the public that will be brought in to shows).  But I believe that - unless NOT going ahead with it will end up costing more than going ahead with it will - it is more important to maintain Reed’s ethos (second time in two days that I’ve made reference to that) than continue with new buildings.  Reed: Postpone the new build.  Remember that $50,000 is a hell of a lot of money for *anyone* to cover annually, and almost certainly means that more students are financially needy than before.  And remember, while you are agonizing over “protecting the character of the college” (which I do actually believe is important to you), that old and beat-up is as much a part of the Reed character as cutting-edge, if not more.  Prexy will hold for a few more years, as will Kaul and the theatre. 

Changes

In mid-May, the Wall Street Journal asked the presidents of 10 U.S. universities/colleges to answer one question (of the Journal’s choice) from their school’s application.  Colin Diver got stuck with this one:

“A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.”

I found the essay a bit disjointed – the leap from a moment of conflict that happened to have a racial aspect to the musing on diversity didn’t really gel, to my mind.  But that wasn’t really my main problem with the essay.

My main problem can be summed up in five words:

What happened to “Why Reed”?

I’m probably misremembering (as is more often the case the more certain I am about a memory), but I thought the only essay I had to answer for Reed’s application was the “why Reed” one.  It was an introduction to the school’s ethos, succinctly wrapped up in two words.  “Reed is about free thinking, lateral thinking, creativity, individuality.  We’ll demonstrate it by not having the standard set of essay questions to which you can regurgitate a standard answer.  Instead, we will put pressure on you from the very first to think beyond the usual, and to demonstrate your ability to think for yourself, without leading and hand-holding.”

I got my essay back at graduation, as does everyone.  And I’m not sure I would have admitted myself based on what I wrote.  (Thank goodness the admissions team wasn’t made up of me in 1999!)  But still, the “why Reed” question prompted some of the best, most creative responses imaginable in the applicants whose applications I read while working at the admissions office during my senior year.  If the question posed to Colin Diver has supplanted the “why Reed” question, my opinion is that it was a very poor substitution indeed.

20,000 books over the sea

My dreams of late have started to reflect the growing space that moving/grad school/meeting new people is taking up in my mind.  Last night I dreamt about trying desperately not to be late to sign up for classes at Tufts; the night before that, it was all about going to my high school reunion and meeting up with people who knew me as I was in high school, which is to say a very different person than I am now.  As I told my brother recently, I’m not exactly worried about grad school, just conflicted.  I’m sure I’ve said this before, but on the one hand I’m sad about leaving Angus and our home (despite not anticipating missing Gloucester at all), and shocked at how fast the time is going and how little time we have left.  On the other hand, though, I now have a project, a plan, something to DO, and I’m desperate to start it.  I get really antsy if I feel like I know what I want to do but can’t do it right now, and that’s pretty much the situation I find myself in.

Longer-term worries are also on my mind.  Specifically, Portland.  Angus and I intend to move there after I graduate.  In addition to all the worries about whether or not he’ll like it enough to be happy there for a number of years, I worry that things will have changed for me.  Pretty much since I moved there ten years ago, Portland has been home.  No matter how far away I’ve taken myself, Portland has been in my mind daily, and in my heart as this kind of lodestone, somewhere that I’m working my way back to, no matter how circuitously.  Yet I know it’s changing.  I’ve visited a number of times in the years since I first moved to France, and thus far I still have enough in common with it to have the sense of home unchanged.  But what if that’s not the case after grad school?  Two years can do a lot, both to a person and to a city.  I know that this probably seems ridiculous to worry about from an outsider’s perspective, but Portland has been a fixture of my internal landscape for the entirety of my self-aware, semi-adult existence.  The occasional thought that it might be a mirage around which I have constructed a detailed map… well, it worries me.

In more external news, I’m still trying desperately to get through my huge “to read” pile before I leave.  I’ve finished three books in the last week and a half, but it’s still going to be a push to get it all done before the end of August.  I don’t want to have to take too many books to Boston – I intend to mail myself a box of books that might be useful for grad school and to rely on the Boston Public Library for any fun reading that I might have the chance to do.

We took two large boxes – well, a large box and a laundry hamper, really – of books and miscellaneous stuff to a charity shop this last weekend.  That’s my first set of stuff to be getting rid of completely; Jaime took a suitcase-full of things I need for Boston back with her last week, bless her.  I’m trying to consolidate everything I own in the house into my office (clothes excepting), so that I know exactly how much I have to go through and sort.  It’s a struggle; I’ve accumulated so much stuff over the last few years!  That’s one good thing about moving again – owning so much stuff makes me feel twitchy from time to time.  Particularly the books. 

WHY do I own so many books when there are libraries?  And why can’t I bring myself to get rid of more of them?  Even if I limit myself to keeping either signed copies (my Bill Bryson and Jeffrey Sachs and Jasper Fforde) or to copies of books that I read more than once a year (Pride and Prejudice and LOTR and Jane Eyre) or to favorite series (His Dark Materials and Harry Potter and The Dark is Rising and The Fionavar Tapestry and the Thursday Next series) or books that have emotional import for me (i.e. gifts and/or books written by family members and friends)… well, as you can guess, it adds up.

I guess that I could get rid of Harry Potter… and LOTR… But… but… I have matched sets!  (Well, not for LOTR.  In fact, it’s a mammoth, totally unwieldy three-in-one volume, so I have little qualms about getting rid of that.) … You see what I mean?  It’s a genetic problem, as anyone who’s ever been to my mom’s house will testify.  It’s also a potentially-misplaced sense of economy.  I’ve already spent the money to buy these books, so part of me feels like it couldn’t possibly be economically sensible to get rid of them.  It depends on how much international shipping costs, I guess.  ::sigh::  Or I could ask Angus to stick several books into his luggage each time he comes to visit and bring them over little by little…  That might work!  ::shakes herself by the scruff of the mental neck::  If I have Angus bring over too many books, that’s just more stuff to move again in two years, which adds to the real cost of ownership.  I’m always going on about people taking total cost into consideration when considering environmental questions, so why am I not doing so with my books and stuff?  I really, really should cut everything down to those things that are either useful on a daily basis (my clothes) or truly irreplaceable (mementoes, books with emotional/historical import for me, etc.)  Never mind that I have a complete set of English-edition Harry Potters.  I can get the series again, and I’m not a book collector, interested in different editions or covers.  I have books because I read them, by and large!  If I can just as easily read them from a library, what’s the point of owning them?

Books and clothes, books and clothes.  My two main problems, at least as far as moving and living compactly are concerned.  And, as the contradictions in what I have written demonstrate, books are the worst, really.  I feel laden down if I own too many of them, yet I can’t seem to do more than slightly stem my urge to buy them, nor can I easily bring myself to get rid of them once I have them!  Grr.  Argh.

On balance, a good day (yesterday)

Cons: two notifications of rejected grant applications at work

Pros: first blueberries of the year (YUM!!!), bicycling to and from work for the first time in two months, watching a seagull and a magpie gang up on a buzzard that was getting too close to their nests, getting to the hardest gear on my bicycle for a reasonable amount of the ride home (which, admittedly, is mostly sloped very slightly downhill, but still), having lovely steamed salmon with Angus for dinner

Glad I didn’t put my seedlings out…

Fifteen minutes ago, it was sunny.  Ten minutes ago, it was raining.  Three minutes ago it was hailing - hard.  Now it’s a mixture of rain and hail again.

Abso-bloomin-lutely brilliant!

... that’s what the new Star Trek film was, it was.

And in response…

To the article about Freiburg, Germany that I posted a link to a few days ago, this op-ed set of blurbs by a variety of New Urbanists (and others) has been published on the NY Times.

You know, it’s funny.  If you had asked me, ten years ago as I headed to college, what I would be passionate about, one of the farthest things from my mind would have been public transport.  That is due in large part to the abysmal nature of public transport in my hometown of San Antonio.  Four years of life in the public-transport-paradise of PDX, combined with my varied experiences of transport in Europe and Africa, changed that.  Now, as I look ahead to the kind of career I see for myself, one spent encouraging the growth of sustainable communities, with particular emphasis on the incorporation of public transport and public green spaces, seems ideal.  How things do change…

Awesome, just awesome…

I’ll move there...

I miss Africa

Just finished reading this article about Malawi on NY Times, and found myself daydreaming about being back in Africa.  And feeling increasingly guilty about having gotten as far as day five of my trip summary.  Need to work on that…

Soon, soon…

Yet another article extolling Portland’s virtues on NY Times…  Yep, I’m still homesick.

Smart energy grid

Yesterday, I finished reading Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded, which was nicely thought-provoking at times.  Imagine how happy I was, then, so soon after having been introduced to the notion of a smart energy grid by Friedman, to run across this article on exactly that in the New York Times!

As far as I understand it, the smart energy grid would be highly useful in flattening the demand curve(s) for energy, and allow energy suppliers to build plants according to average demand, rather than having always to bet on peak demand and/or catastrophe.  This, in turn, could allow more uncertain or fluctuating energy production methods - such as wind power or solar power - to be phased in, since there would be built-in flexibility in the grid should the wind suddenly stop or the sky cloud over.

Additionally, there is the feedback to the consumer.  It seems that many people still don’t realize just how much energy is wasted in everyday life, and certainly none of us are usually given a monetary breakdown of what it’s costing to power things from minute-to-minute, or hour-to-hour.  The smart grid does that, and as such should, it is hoped, provide impetus for individuals and companies to examine their power usage and find out where economies can be made.

What I don’t completely understand is how this smart grid will help with environmental concerns down the line.  I suppose that, as energy costs rise due to the rising cost of oil and the non-substitution of renewables, consumers will eventually find themselves at the point where they have economised their power use as much as they are willing, and consumer demand for renewables will rise.  Also, Friedman hypothesises in his book that consumers could sell energy back to the grid; this is also mentioned in the NY Times article.  This would encourage uptake of microgeneration technologies, which is almost certainly a part of future life, despite being uneconomical at the moment.

All in all, the $200 buy-in cost mentioned as a potential barrier in the NY Times article is something that I would certainly not be hindered by… if I had an extra $200.  But I don’t, and even if I did, I am at least nominally an environmentalist.  What about those who aren’t?  Then again, as with any new technology, the onus is usually on the enthusiasts/geeks to buy in when costs are high, and in doing so to fund advancements that will make said technology both more efficient and more affordable for the masses.  I guess I’m just not used to being on the cutting edge in my consumer desires!

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”

I went to see the new X-Men film last night (as it opened here sooner than in the US).  I won’t give any plot spoilers, but I will give you a small break so that, if you don’t want to read my opinions, you can stop now.

********************************************
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dum de dum de dum….
Is this enough of a break?  I think so…

So, in short, the film was too slow and plot-driven for an action film, and had too many action sequences for a plot-driven film.  I really wanted more plot, because Wolverine’s background is interesting enough, and Hugh Jackman a good enough actor, to have carried a “proper” film.  The action sequences were kinda dull, and the director was far too fond of fast cuts, which means that you never really get to appreciate what the actors are doing for the action sequences.  And, honestly, even I, an eager Hugh Jackman ogler, started to roll my eyes as he was stripped down to jeans and white tank top, or even less, for the umpteenth time.  I mean, we get it; he’s ripped.

I think the best parts of the film were the parts that showed Logan before he became Wolverine, in Canada.  The bits of the film that actually relied on Hugh Jackman acting, rather than running around, looking buff and angry.  Overall, I’d probably, and I hate to say this, rank this film below even the first X-Men film, which was sillier, but at least comfortable with what it was.  This film couldn’t make up its mind, it seems.

Pets, work, gardens, plans.

I realize that I am absolutely rubbish about posting anything substantive when things are going well, which is silly, given that the original point of this blog was to reassure my friends and family that things were going well.  I suppose that life in the UK has become so second-nature to me by now that it doesn’t seem like it would be terribly interesting to those elsewhere.  ::shrug::

Anyway, as you may have gathered from the lack of substantive posts lately, things are going very well.  Now that I’ve recovered 98% of my mobility after my marathon silliness (though I’m still dealing with horrible, acidic stomachness from the anti-inflammatory pills I’m on for another two weeks), it’s pretty much all systems go.

Angus and I have been taking care of a friend’s dog and cat for the last two weeks, while he’s out of the country.  Jodie, the dog, is one of the sweetest creatures I’ve ever run across, and has the added bonus of being exceptionally well-trained!  She’s a rescue dog of the “mongrel” sort, but apart from needing to be introduced to men she doesn’t know and a hesitancy regarding any other dogs, she doesn’t show any rescue dog neuroses.  We want pets even more badly now, despite Giuseppe the cat’s blood-thirstiness.

Work is going well for me, I think.  As you may have read previously, I’ve had my first grant application response.  They accepted our application, which makes me feel a little better about what I’m doing.  Now, if I could just get a little more direction from the Board (which was how things were supposed to be in the first place), I’d feel even better.  Still, all of this is a good introduction to working in small non-profits, and gives me things to remember – both positive and negative – about the experience.

The garden is springing up nicely, an activity that I hope the current cold snap won’t hinder.  The poppy has three enormous flower buds on it.  In fact, everything on the right-hand side of the trellis is going great guns.  I couldn’t understand this for a long while – the right-hand side gets less sun, is generally marshier, etc.  I think I’ve finally figured it out, though, in a “duh” moment.  The left-hand side of the back yard is where we dumped all the rubble and crud during the housework.  I think, therefore, that the ground all along the left-hand side is in worse shape than the right. 

I felt very much a member of British society when I found myself in queue at B&Q, clutching my seed packets and starter trays and potting soil, right behind everyone else, all clutching variations on the same thing.  The Brits as a whole are potty (ha ha!) about gardening, and that’s as it should be.  After all, they are blessed – generally – with an absolutely wonderful gardening climate!  I’ve found myself, in the last few months, daydreaming about having an allotment plot (or joining a community garden in Boston) and growing my own vegetables.  I have reluctantly decided that I really shouldn’t try to take that on while I’m at school, but at the very least I plan to have some potted plants in my room.  Not the same, but I can’t do without a few plants!

Angus continues to take (and shine at) swing dance lessons.  I’m really enjoying getting to dance with him – weekly, after his lessons, so that he can show me the new steps they learned that week, and monthly, at the various dances in the area.  :-)  My “extracurricular” activities have expanded to include drawing (when I can or feel like it), and I’m pretty happy with the way I’m getting on.  I’m trying to carry around a sketchpad and markers with me at all times, just in case I find myself with a spare few minutes and feel like sketching, but since I also already carry around a book with me at all time, my purse is starting to dislocate my shoulder.

I’m getting quite nervous about money for grad school, and it doesn’t help that I don’t know what sort of loan package Tufts will be offering me.  Until I know how much they give me, I can’t start applying for loans to cover cost of living, which I have been warned are (not surprisingly) very difficult to procure just now.  I will be getting a job when I get to Boston, but I don’t want to have to count on a job to cover all my costs of living, when what I really need to focus on is getting the most for my money, school-wise.  I know it will all work out, but right now I’m stuck in the limbo of not knowing, not having a plan, and that is never a place where I’m comfortable. 

I’m also getting increasingly sadder at the thought of being separated from Angus… again.  I know that I’ve chosen to do this, and I know that we’ve done it before, and I know that I don’t have to worry about the stability of our relationship while I’m gone.  None of that makes me any happier with the thought of not being able to curl up to sleep with him, or not being able to joke around and be silly with him any time I want.  And somehow, the end of August seems so VERY near.  But, at the same time, I remember that it has already been 10 months since we left for Africa, and that it’s already been a full month since my birthday, and two and a half years since I moved to the UK, and all of those periods of time have flown by so quickly that I can hardly believe it.  So too, presumably, will fly the time in Boston.

So much to do, so little time…