Continual State of Becoming

a story my sister just told me... Sarah: ohhh i have a story for you!! Jessica: ooh i want to hear Sarah: im watching planet earth with dad Sarah: it was the rainforest one Jessica: what is planet earth? Sarah: um..we'll get to that in a minute Sarah: anyways Jessica: ok Sarah: ..its on discovery for some background info Sarah: a mini series that took 5 years tofilm Sarah: and shows like..all this nature sstuff Jessica: oh ok Sarah: so i came downstairs to watch it in hd Sarah: and theres are part when there is a chimapnze raid kind of..so theyre like fighting eachother Sarah: and one side kill another chimp from the other side & eat it Sarah: and dad goes"guess jessica cant eat that" Sarah: BECAUSE WE EAT CHIMPS APPARENTLY that pretty much sums up my parents reaction...

Your Learning Style: Unconventional and Insightful You are very intuitive and ingenious. You're attracted to any field of study that lets you break the rules. You Should Study: Art Art history Architecture Comparative religions Eastern religion Education Music Philosophy What Should You Study?

I never used to listen to NPR . I think it's because I always thought that all they did was talk about politics and other things of non-interest to me. But lately I've decided to give them a try. This link goes over a review of the song "This is Why I'm Hot" that I heard a couple days ago. It's a very unique way of analyzing a piece of music. Also, just thought I'd mention that the minimalist/conceptualist artist, Sol LeWitt died this past week. (Part of my job requires that I read the obits of major newspapers... so I'm pretty on top of who's dying in the country, here's an interesting one). I was sad to hear about that, I really like some of his sculptures . And I remember my old boss telling me about when he was at the gallery working on one of his wall paintings.

Matt and I stopped by the outlet mall today. Since we got there before things really started opening, we hung out in the food court with some Starbucks and Matt played Galaga for a little while. He played just long enough to set a new high score (if you are ever at the outlet mall, you can check it out). I've also seen him flip the score (go all the way around back to 000000) at a bar in Herndon. Matt is the Galaga Commander. I am honored to have the privilege of standing by his side (and holding his hot chocolate) while he shows his dominance and leaves behind his three letter legacy.

Easter Eggs by State This will take you to the White House's page for, what I guess to be, the official state easter eggs for this year. Of course DC's has a picture of the white house, but some of the other states are more creative. I particularly liked Florida's. This makes my easter egg decorating skills look very primitive. Adorable Bunnies A couple pictures of the cherry blossoms and bunnies.

This used to be my studio room. It used to have 2 of those pianos, a huge desk, lots of books and business supplies, no coffee table, and lots of little kids. As of today, it looks and functions like a normal living room. Well it's getting close at least.

Imagine Peace Yoko Ono’s cherry blossom art project. Go to the Hirschhorn museum and write one down before April 15th. Beethoven Radio If you like opera, like I do, but get irritated that classical music stations don’t include any kind of vocal works… check out Beethoven.com. They play a full opera every Saturday. Also they have a pretty good line up during the week, a little more varied than most classical radio stations. Usually when I’m at work I flip between Beethoven Radio, King FM, NPR, and WETA. (of course that’s in addition to the Classical Music Library database available to me through UMDs resources). Creativity Exercise If you have a digital camera, carry it with you for an entire day and keep a lookout for things that you think are creative or interesting. Take a picture of these things. Go for at least 100 photos. If you are having a hard time, try to focus on the little details. A book could have a creative title or a pile of paper clips could be in an interesting ar...

.... or What Happens When 1 Experienced Piano Mover and 1 Piano Mover in Training Attempt to Carry Your Upright Down a Flight of Stairs

I have a tendency to take A LOT of notes when I read. This is partially because I remember things better if I've written them down, and also partially because I think the information is worth retaining in some form. I've always thought it would be a lot easier and faster to just highlight things, but I dont. This is because my grandfather is notorious for the amount he highlights in his books (I think pretty much every things except words like "the, a, of, is, etc"). Family is always teasing him for this, and people usually buy him large quantities of highlighters as a joke. For some reason, I feel the need to avoid that kind of taunting, so instead, I basically rewrite the book I'm reading.

If I had to choose between having the piano skills of Ben Folds or Tori Amos, I would probably have a hard time. I think Ben Folds plays more from the guy. He has a more aggressive, spontaneous and raw style. Which is pretty much the opposite of my personality so I think it might be fun to try that out. Tori Amos, on the other hand has a more contemplative, introspective, and refined style. Plus, her song are better. So I'm not sure who's skills I would choose to have. I guess since this is just a hypothetical question, I would pick both.

A blog posting about problems with the Library Science degree. It was SO right on that I even commented on it. Which is the very first time I've ever commented on a blog belonging to someone I don't know. (I'm commentor 19 if you are interested).

So I just looked up Common Practice Period in wikipedia, and it turns out that my definition of it was pretty much right on. And you know if it's in wikipedia it must be true. There I go again, showing my mad scholarly skills... citing wikipedia. I'm awesome.

The other day matt and I were talking, and somehow I was mentioning that I probably wouldn't do very well at studying music theory at graduate school level. I decided this because once you get past what I think is known as the "Common Practice Period" theory (basically up until post-romantic styles... either that or it's just Baroque music... but I'm going to use the term as if it means up until post-romantic music), everything goes crazy because CPP rules no longer apply to that kind of music. So while we have a set of tools for examining, understanding, and comparing music from pre-Baroque through Romantic music, there really isn't anything that is all-encompassing beyond that. Basically this has resulted in the creation of LOTS of tools, that may apply only to a specific genre, composer, or even song. And in all honesty, I just find that quite pointless. I mean the nice thing about CPP theory is that you can use things like roman numeral analysis, form...

Today I registered for classes at the University of Maryland for the last time. Or at least what I hope to be the last time. If this isn't already widely known, it should be... CLIS (College of Library and Information Science... which is the name of the college/program I'm in) is TERRIBLE at registration. Completely unorganized, unaware of how the technology works (you'd think they were the first ones to have ever used online registration), and totally unhelpful if you ask them any questions. Which is pretty much the EXACT OPPOSITE of what being a librarian is ALL about. Way to represent! Anyway, I managed to get through this registration without any major problems (other than one of the online courses being "full" before registration even started... uhh... what's up with that????) So here's what's in store for me for the remainder of my MLS program. Summer 1: Literature for Young Adults. Okay a little bit of a deviation from the whole glamoro...

Things done so far this week: Work: Assisted two professional researchers in finding a resource (each) they couldn't locate on their own. Found a new metro route home which cuts about 10 minutes off my commute time. Figured out that I added twice as many new items to the vertical files collection during March than we usually do in a month. Found lots of interesting art-related websites and such, but haven't sent myself the info in an email yet... once I do, I'm sure I'll post them here. School: Started a paper that's due tomorrow. Umm... except that I didn't really start writing it until today, so I'm gonna be up for a while. Interviewed someone for my music research paper. Finally found resources that address my topic specifically (instead of in a round about way). Finished cataloging assignment in about half the time I expected it to take... maybe it's easier than I thought. Registered for Summer and Fall classes... my last time registering. ...

If you aren't watching the Colbert Report , you should be. Seriously. Program your tivo now.

So tomorrow is my last day of spring break. Did I get everything done that needed to get done? Hardly. grrr... When is the semester over? I did finish my research proposal. It ended up being 10 pages, not 5 (apparently I can write a lot about what I'm going to write about) and I even turned it in a whole HOUR before the deadline. My teacher wrote back yesterday and said it was great and he's looking forward to my paper. And now comes the real work... I worked at the gallery 3 days during the week. I realized that this is probably too much if I even stand a chance of finishing all my school work this semester (that's a big if...). So for a little while at least, I'm cutting my hours down to 2 days a week. I already feel more confident about the time I have to study. I spent about 3 hours straight on Friday just filing this little postcard things... my neck is killing me from it now. I guess I should stretch or something before hand. I spent the rest of Sprin...

Ugh. I am currently writing a research proposal for my music research class. Which means that at the moment I am writing a paper discussing the fact that I want to write a paper. And it has to be a minimum of 5 pages. 5 pages of "I will write about this in my paper" and "I will write about that in my paper." I can think of about 30 other more productive ways to spend my time, but instead I'm writing a paper about a paper I'm going to be writing. And it's due at 3:00 tomorrow... which, by the way is my first official day of spring break. Fabulous.

ps- Since I just copied and pasted the emails in the post below, I just double checked the dates I gave for Bach's birth and death so that I wouldnt have incorrect ones (and make myself look like an idiot). And it turns out that I was right, I knew them off the top of my head. Go me!