a note job

I am in orchestration and arranging with Dr. Ashton. We had this assignment that was described as the following:

"Copy parts for the 1st and 2d oboes and the 2d clarinet from Haydn's Symphony No. 104 in D Major. Place each instrument on a separate staff on the same page. For the last eight measures, give the 2d oboe a performance cue of the viola line (watch the clef) and provide a performance cue of the 1st oboe part for the last 8 measures in the clarinet."

Ok. What does that sound like to you? I assumed it was in score form, since that is what we had done the day before, and it said "on the same page." So that night I began to work on it--for two hours, completing a whole 5 measures out of 15. I labored on it painstakingly--drawing all lines and stems with rulers. Lining up all notes vertically with my ruler. My pink pearl eraser was my trusty side-kick the whole way. (It has undoubtedly lost a little weight through the journey.) Then I got to the "cues" part. This seemed odd to me. Why would the book want me to write cues in for a score? Then I read "copy parts." Oh no! Could it be that I was supposed to extract separate parts for each instrument? (Who would want a score of 2 oboes, 2nd clarinet, and viola cues anyway?) I immediately stopped what I was doing. I would ask Dr. Ashton later. I checked his office multiple times, but alas he was in absentia. I waited until after orchestra to ask him. Yes, I was supposed to have extracted the parts and made them separate. The book told us "on the same page" so we could save paper. Wasn't that nice of them? "Well...I already started doing it in score. I've been working on it for two hours...do you think I could do surgery on it?" He said, "Ok, this time, and if it's neat." Yes. I didn't have to start over.

So tonight I listened to Mahler 1 (By the way, I adore how Claudio Abbado and the Beliner Philharmoniker start the 2nd mvt. slower and then do an accelerando.) whilst doing the cutting. It started thunder storming.

^My beautiful score. (Sorry it's a fuzzy pic)

^I don't want to cut up my beautiful work!

^After I cut the Oboe I part off the top.

^The Oboe I part, surgery complete. Cutting and pasting is much easier on a computer.


^The Oboe II part, complete with Viola cues.


^I just finished. I'm going to bed! Being a surgeon is stressful.

geocaching

Coming soon...geocaching with the Reynolds

should be sleeping...

It was 12:45 and Health for Life was ending. I was starving! All class I’d been thinking about making meatballs and spaghetti. I walked home and started grinding the walnuts. Bah, the walnuts were crowding to the bottom of the food processor. It just wasn’t working. I finally got them put together. I like to fry meatballs on the stove, but at school I’ve been putting a little oil on the pan and baking them in the toaster oven. I poured the oil on...a little bit more than usual. I had spaghetti boiling, sauce cooking, and extra sharp cheddar cheese grated. I was washing some dishes, and I turned to see flames shooting out of top of the toaster oven. It was making some alarming noises (insert onomatopoeia here). I gaped at it for several seconds. I timidly reached over and turned it off. It continued to pop, sizzle, and flame. Then I unplugged it. It calmed down. Apparently I had put too much oil in it...and the pan may have still been wet. Whoops. Oh well, nothing like a little grease fire, and I was still starving! I decided to resort to preferred method #1 and fry them. I poured some oil in the frying pan and put it on the back burner. The electric burner. I despise electric stoves. I can never tell if they’re on. (I have a gas stove at home. I like to see the fire. They’re more practical too–if we get a snow storm and the electricity goes out, at least we can eat hot food! We have a gas dryer too, so we could have warm, dry clothes...but that doesn’t have anything to do with this story.) And it just so happens that we have a problem with our front right burner on our stove here. Sometimes it doesn’t come on. I usually notice five minutes later when the water isn’t boiling. My remedy for that is to assume it’s not on, barely touch it to make sure it isn’t, and then reposition it. Alas, the oil in my frying pan on the back burner didn’t seem to be getting hot. Therefore, I touched the burner, as was my habit. Ouch. The pads of my fingers seared with pain. As I rushed to put my fingers under cold water, the first thought that popped into my mind was oh no. Juries are coming. How am I going to practice with blistered fingers? I grabbed my strawberry freezer jam jar and held onto it while I finished the meal with my left hand. Praise the Lord, it turned out that the skin on my fingers....well burned, but it didn’t blister. It became hard and I had no feeling at the area of devastation. I began to think that burners are like life. I hope that my life is like a gas burner. Can you see Jesus shining out of me? Or are you left to wonder if there’s anything burning at all? Can others see the flame? Don’t be like an electric burner.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Matthew 5:16

should be working...

So I'm at work right now, and I should be studying. (Instead I'm writing my first blog!) On the way up to NY for break, Erin and I decided that we were going to start blogs, starting w/our adventuresome trek to the lovely, cold state of NY.

Our trek started at the horrid hour of 5:30 am. I warned Saralyn the night before that I probably wouldn't talk to her. She and Emily were eating breakfast when I clomped out to the kitchen. I grunted and waved my arm. Erin and I started our 800 mile journey. I eventually fell asleep, and around 8:00 I woke up for the day. We decided to stop for breakfast somewhere, and on our last journey we had found an awesome grocery store called Ingalls. We pulled into a Food City. Never go there. Ever. I bought a bagel, cream cheese, and egg nog. At the car I realized that I didn't have change or a receipt. 17 dollars. We went back inside and the man was bagging groceries. "oh, here's your change." I gave him a perplexed look. "Thanks......" Don't they usually like come out and find you? Or at least try? Weird. We started on the road. I tore off some of my bagel and wiped it in the cream cheese. It tasted a little funny. whatever...I kept eating. Then I opened the rest of the package. Gross! Moldy. Now that's a color of green that I don't appreciate. yeah, it was moldy and smelled terrible. Let the adventures begin! I pretty much lost my appetite, and now the egg nog tasted funny as well. Later down the road, (exit 50 in VA, to be exact) we hit something. flap, flap, flap went our tire. A very nice man ended up helping us. He lived over the hill, as the crow flew. His cell phone ring was a rooster cock-a-doodle-doing. He put the donut on, and we watched (which is just like changing a timpani head, i might add). He would stop and talk to us every now and then, in his nice southern accent. Then he told us to go to exit 70 to the tire place there. We started down the highway. He was following us. What a nice man! Then he led us to the tire place. Once we got there, he continued to talk. It was his day off work. He built and raced cars. He took turns with his siblings taking care of his dad. I'm sorry, but this is a very boring blog. I seem to have no inspiration. We got a new tire, and it was a pretty normal trip from then on.