I finished my last final tonight!! I'm officially a 2nd year grad student now. Don't you think this occasion warrants a blog entry? Here are some things I learned that I never knew before:
1. I know the difference between simple and rounded binary form.
2. I know the difference between a bridge and a re-transition.
3. I can define bebop
4. I know how to write in Chicago style
5. I learned all about accompanist Andre Benoist and made the acquaintance of his son, Albert.
6. I RE-learned how to modulate and
7. how to harmonize figured bass and
8. how to identify all the various augmented 6th chords (Do you think that will ever stick in my brain? I've forgotten already)
9. I discovered Mary Lou Williams
10. I became painfully aware of the effects of the Jim Crow laws in the South
11. I discovered Fred Hersch
12. I learned to play the Chopin 4th Ballade!!
13. And the Rachmaninoff 4th piano concerto!!
14. And Granados' El Pelele!!
15. My kids learned how to do laundry (lol)
16. I learned that the world will not end if I don't clean my house
17. I learned that if I get up early, I can accomplish 3x more in my day
18. I learned that my husband would stand by me while I accomplish a dream of mine (What a guy; he has been very supportive)
19. I've tried to learn to be respectful of authority. Don't know if I'll ever learn that really well, but I'm making strides :)
20. I learned that if you have a dream, no one is going to pursue it for you. You pretty much have to step forward and take it!
It's been a great year. SOOO glad it's over.
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Hey, I didn't know you blogged! Hmmm, chalk it up as another missed step the absent-minded (those of us among the lot who always seem to miss that which others can so easliy see, as we ponder the hidden realm, which none can see). Well anyway, you're profile reads like something of an autobiography (except in my case we have the violin, two kids and my hobbies do not include quilting).
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a GREAT Friday afternoon, a GREAT weekend and an even better week next week!!!
Take care :-)
BTW, very nice blog you have here. Kudos to you!
ReplyDeleteBTW, #'s 15-20 are my favourites!!! I remember when you were first writing about the year on facebook. Wow, how much time has passed??? Too much time (the subversive agent it is, when applied to life).
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Time...one more BTW, if I may. I presume you have an iPod (seeing how you have an Apple TV...why not?). If so, here's something you might really enjoy (that is, when you are in need of something REALLY other than a long row of black and white keys you might otherwise enjoy). Anyway, look up (in the iTunes store) the lectures by Ramamurti Shankar, which are available for FREE on video (can you say MEGABYTES!?!) or audio as part of the Yale Open University series. They are the lectures from his immensely popular class "Fundamentals in Physics", and are really quite entertaining (perhaps Nate Robinson sat in on these lectures once upon a time...but, perhaps you are not aware of Nate, what with his penchant for the bowed string and all). Well, the lectures are rather straightforward, however they will blow your mind all the same (how could a subject such as the Principle of Relativity not?) and in so doing help set in place the all-important balance we each so desperately need.
And after you have digested the series (24 lectures, I think, each 75-minutes long), turn to Roger Penrose's book "The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe". It is another mind-blowing treatise, riding the edge of reality as we know it in our day, the most fundamental nature of everything we see and touch (but not feel, for that is something else, hence the balance!)
Alright, signing off now, I'm through with crashing other people's blogs. Sorry to have gone all wordy on ya.