So much stuff, so little of it sleep...
It started on Friday. Class in the morning was fine, but then I had to go to a party for my internship. I don't like parties. At all. I don't like crowds, I don't like dealing with strangers, and I don't like not having an escape. This party checked the entire list. I was helping in the media room for most of it, which meant guarding the door when there was an interview in progress. Turns out people don't like not being let into a room. I had to deal with some pushy people, and that is not my forte (luckily, the guy who was helping in the room talked most of the people down if they barged past me). That was rough, but it was nothing compared to the food situation.
The media room was supposed to have a small table of food for the media staff. Sadly, the room was labeled the VIP room, as well as the media room, so everyone came up to see it and to act like a VIP. Everyone. Random people who were incredibly under dressed for the occasion (Code: semi-formal, but relaxed so more people would show. Wearing: T-shirt, hoodie, jeans.) went in, hung out, and ate food. Our food. The only food that the media staff was allotted for the night. By the time we figured out what was going on, there was nothing left but weird couscous cups that I couldn't stomach. We got there at 18h on Friday, and were allowed the leftovers at 1h on Saturday. I hadn't eaten since 15h. It was not the most pleasant of experiences.
Then came daylight on Saturday (after sleep, of course). I had the internship from 13h-16h, and I woke up at 12h. My ride, in some odd act of universal sympathy, woke up at 12:30 and picked me up around 13:15. We worked until 16h, then he took me back to campus, where I quickly changed and went to my techie (paying) job at 18h. I stayed there and worked (moved things, dealt with late people, read a book because I couldn't hear the performance) until 21:45, at which point I went home and chatted with a friend and a brother for far longer than I should have. Fell asleep on Sunday.
Sunday was the big semester concert for my percussion ensemble. I woke up at 13 or 14h, and had to be at the practice studio by 18h. Plenty of time. I wasn't pressed at all. A nice relief. My mother came up to watch the concert, but got here early so we walked and talked a bit before I had to go to practice. Practice happened. We ironed out some rough parts, figured out how to cover over some parts we couldn't fix, and prepared for our first play-throughs onstage.
The show started with a piece written by one of our members. It was a nice piece that sounded like something a percussion ensemble would play for a university concert. It went well, considering I hadn't been able to retune the timpani correctly during our last practice (timpani tune with foot pedals...Eh, look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timpani#Tuning).
The second piece was a strictly rhythmic piece with four people each playing a different sized paper bag. It was not flawless, but it was awesome. We all knew where we were and what mistakes to look for, so we always sounded together, whether we were right or not.
The third piece was John Cage's "Living Room Music". Look it up. I played the last two movements, one of which I completely improvised. One thing I can say about Cage is that once you understand what rhythmic device he's playing with, you can improvise the whole thing. I found out later that the person I was looking to for cues had also improvised the whole thing. Yay, Cage!
The final piece was a Daft Punk medley that another one of our members arranged. It. was. awesome. During our final practice I had internalized the entire thing, so I was just playing from memory, and the only thing I screwed up was that I dropped a mallet three measures before my entrance. That was it. I even did a flourish at the end. We rocked it.
After the show, I went and got food with my mother, then came home and...chatted with a friend and a brother for far too long... I need to work on that. But that leads to today. Today was not bad. The weekend from hell is over, and I feel excellent about most of it. I still hate that party, though...
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