treasure trove

Every time my parents find an old box of CDs rearranging their collection, interesting things appear. Right now I'm listening to a mix CD I made ten years ago, with some songs I feel I haven't ever heard before... RNB, jazz, South Park characters ruining the theme from Titanic... It's all good.

Is it all good? I think I say that too easily about life: not everything in life IS all good, in fact most of it's not, but it seems like a nice positive statement about life as long as things aren't going horribly wrong.

Ooh, "J'aime la vie" is playing! It's some upbeat hit song from the French eighties, which like the Canadian eighties, didn't happen until the US nineties. I believe. It's all good.

The Hunger Games

Well, I'm starting living in a new house with new housemates and starting a new job with new coworkers and starting a new blog (semi-new, I have used this page before, as you can see by the 09 blogs), and if I'm starting a new blog, it should be about stuff that other people are interested in... If I was going to blog for myself I would simply write in my journal (which I do more and more, but it's stuff I write for me or for God, and even telling you that feels a little out of my comfort zone). No, I want to share thoughts I have with you, my reader, and thus I choose a safe topic: the Harry Potter / Twilight novel / movie set of this year, The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. If you have not read it / see it, I will try not to spoil it for you, but I do have to reveal a couple things, so don't read on if you hate spoilers.

Do I recommend it? Yes and no. It's fascinating as a novel, you can't put it down, you have to make sure the characters you care about are alive. The plot, to be brief about it, is that in a post-apocolyptic world, post-rebellion Panem where the US used to be, once a year Hunger Games are held and televised. The Games pit 24 youngsters (teens) against each other, two from each District that surround the Capitol (the ruling district). They must destroy each other until one remains alive, as a reminder to all involved that the Capitol will never forget the rebellion held against them. The main character, Katniss, takes her sister's place in the Games to save her from certain death. The Games are bloody and awful, but there is a lesson to be learned here: watching violence is as condoning of it as if one was there participating in the gore one's self, and a world ruled by such entertainers is an immoral and evil world. We in the US, the book seems to be telling us, need to be on constant vigil against our own country becoming such a place.

So, yes, the book has a point, and is hard to put down. But I feel like the whole point of the book is ruined by the creation of a movie about the book. The lesson of the book is that watching humans kill for sport is a type of entertainment best left to those of ancient Rome watching sports in the Colosseum. And my thought is, here's a Catch 22: if you watch the movie and all that violence, are you really any better than the people in the Capitol or the Districts that support the Games? And the answer to that, I feel, is emphatically NO. I think even me finishing the book felt a little hypocritical on my part. That said, the end of the book being unfinished, there being two more books and me wanting to see the Hunger Games stopped for good, I may actually read the second two novels as well. But let me just say, I enjoyed the Traveling Pants novels by Ann Brashares much better as a book option for teens and adults. They may not be thrillers, but it's nice to read a book without violence.

music for the season

Watermelon Music is a fun place to be. I wandered in there the other day with friends (we were waiting for a movie to start) and instantly found two books of arrangements of musicals, my typical Watermelon fare. Then, after buying them, I realized they have holiday music on sale, including clarinet music with accompaniment. It's addicting to learn a new instrument... so much to explore, so much to try. I was good and stuck to my two musicals (today, Billy Joel's Movin' Out and Nunsense), but now I know where the clarinet arrangements are... :P Of course, with the musicians we have at church, it's quite likely that now that E has found his clarinet, we can just play straight out of the hymnal as a clarinet duo, playing the alto and soprano lines. Either way, I'm looking forward to playing the clarinet more often in church. It's been simpler for me to learn than other instruments like brass or flutes. I just need to branch out from pieces written in B flat... :P

yays and boos.

Yay! Dinner with a friend.

Boo! Late to rehearsal.

Yay! nifty new shoes in the mail.

Boo! Friends backing out of going to see a movie.

Yay! finding a new musical I haven't played thru yet.

Boo! Not getting any homework done.

Yay! People reading and responding to my blog.

Boo! Spending Friday night working on homework and cleaning the house.

Yay! Being alive.

I will leave this on the positive note, because today, for the very first day in a long time, I was happy to be living my own life and not someone else's. Yay!

vent about singing

Last night at rehearsal I was told that my voice is loud (high?) enough to shatter windows. I'm not sure whether to take this as a compliment or an insult... I'm fairly sensitive about my voice. I am always trying to make it better, which means experimenting with different sounds and the use / removal of vibrato. I started out as an alto in high school, sang second soprano for awhile and then became a soprano I in college, which I remain. I love love love singing high notes... there's a certain indescribable feeling that one feels when hitting them. But I've been told more than once recently that people hear me without a microphone as well as they hear others who are miked. In fact, one friend could hear me singing while they were in the bathroom at church... The main problem, of course, is that I cannot hear myself sing. However, I'm trying to listen and learn by what I hear from the speakers when I am miked. If you know me and have heard me sing, I would love pointers as to how to get the nicest sound. I fully believe I have the ability to be a good singer; I just need to keep practicing. So, don't be shy. Give me a comment.

footing the bill

It's interesting how the check gets split between a man and a woman. If you're with a friend, you either split the check or take turns footing the bill, if you see them on a regular enough basis that noone forgets who was last. If you're with a man, however, things get more complicated. If you want to stay friends and no more, you have to pay your half of the bill, always, like clockwork, so you don't owe him anything. If you like him as more than a friend, you still have to pay your half of the bill if you're going out as friends. If you tried to get him to pay and he wasn't going to, you've just embarrassed yourself by telling him implicitly you thought the meal was a date, when he very well could have thought it was just an outing with friends. So you don't dare not paying then. In fact, there are only two situations where he will pay. First, if he insists on paying, you don't have to pay unless (see situation one) you don't want anything more. Second, if you actually are going out, he should be paying for you at least part of the time. See how complicated this becomes? You have to worry about what he's thinking and guess his thoughts in almost all situations, which can be tricky. And these are just relationship rules for eating out... Life is so difficult!

school, illness and baby, but baby isn't sick

aaaaah! I'm behind one day in the month of writing, so today I'll have to put up two articles (hopefully on different subjects?). Since it was school and illness that kept me from writing yesterday, maybe I'll make them the subjects. School, when I can make it there, is going well. I love my classes this semester, and just when I think I can't load more studying on, I get a reprieve. For instance, one of my classes this week had no homework, as one class was cancelled and we're watching and discussing a movie in the other. This happened just as the rest of my classes were almost catching up with me and me not being able to do them all. Now I am happily catching up.

Illness is never interesting until you get to be 80 and then it becomes a game every week: Who's The Elderly Person with the MOST Aches and Pains??? I would certainly lose, because although I have felt under the weather sporadically recently, I have developed no cold, no flu and definitely no pigs-can-fly illness either. And now that I write this down (where is wood when I need to knock on it??), I shall develop all three. Such is life.

In other news, I have been holding a baby without breaking it successfully! I keep thinking that if I hold it too long it will squirm, and if it squirms I will drop it... but considering that it's only 6 pounds, it's pretty simple to engulf it in my arms and not let it go anywhere. We'll see what happens when it gets bigger.

Back to school again: I have figured out my schedule for studying for my three exams, but I have yet to figure out a good way to stick writing my paper in there. And preparing for trial (fake trial for class, not a real one yet). (Although I do love to tell people, "I am getting ready for my closing arguments today"....) Anybody have some good time-management tips for me?

Blog 1 of 2 ended. Blog 2 to come.