Pain scale.

I love XKCD.  They hit the nail on the head so often.  And I about died when I saw this one.  See, I was just in the doctor's office for an ear infection on Thursday and she asked me to rate the pain on a scale from one to ten.  I said eight.  Then I thought about it.  I've broken my toe and that was excruciating.  I've had a root canal on a live tooth.  *shudder*  I've woken up from a surgery during which they've sliced open my abdomen and spread apart my rib cage...  After thinking about this for a minute, I turned to her and said, "You know, like an eight as far as ear infections go.  It's not really all that bad..."

Speaking of that particular appointment, I learned that I have this thing called bullous myringitis.  I will spare you most of the details on that, 'cause it's gross.  Anyway, the doc looks in my ear and says, "Oh, wow..."  I've gotten a little desensitized to this kind of a reaction given the fiasco that occurred two years ago.  I ask her what's wrong and she just looks at me and says, "Can I have the other doctors come in and look at your ear?  It's just that, you never really see a good example of this outside a textbook."  *sigh*  I guess if I'm gonna be a medical wreck, I may as well be a learning experience. 

Brundibar

Brundibar was a story I heard when I was pretty young; I had a music teacher in elementary school who thought it'd be a cool thing for us to learn as a Holocaust survivor was coming to speak to us around the same time.  Brundibar is a Czech children's opera written during the time of the Holocaust about two children who go to the town square to get some milk for their sick mother.  With the help of their animal friends, the manage to end the musical tyranny of Brundibar the accordion player (with very Nazi-esque evil tendencies) over the town square so they can sing and earn some money to buy the milk.  The wiki of the story is really good if you want to learn more about it.  Now as a college graduate with a degree in music education, this lesson has popped into my head on more than one occasion because I think it'd be a neat thing to teach my older students and tie into learning about the Holocaust and WWII in their main classroom some day.  What fortune that I should happen upon a copy of the adapted book by Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are) in the delete rack while I was processing books to go to the book sale room!  The book was in lovely condition and $.50 for such a rad children's book is a steal!  I'm pretty jazzed about the find and will definitely find a way to use this in my classroom in the future.  ^-^

Things I Do at Work OR The Adventures of Bob the Space Cowboy Pt. 1

My job, at times, does not require a great deal of brain power.  I mean, really I'm meant to sit around and wait for people to ask me questions along the lines of "Where's the 'print' button in Microsoft Word?" and "How do I delete something in my email?"  Not exactly rocket science considering I've been working in IT for about five or six years now.  (Note: My degree is in education, but I'm becoming increasingly aware that my technology skills are much more marketable.  Go figure.  *sigh*)  Anyway, when boredom strikes, I am often looking for something to make the time go much much faster.  Luckily my friend Carrie is often able to supply me with such a distraction.  We were chatting in gchat and she tells me to tell her a story about Bob, the space cowboy from Neptune.  I was more than willing to oblige.  The resulting is this: Pt. 1 of The Adventures of Bob the Space Cowboy.  (There's not much.  I did still have to help people during this time, after all...)

Once there was a three arm gephlot named Bob.  And he was a space cowboy, boy howdy.  But not the kind that wrangled alien wildlife, was rugged and strapping, or generally particpated in the romantic stereotypical definition of what you and I know to be a cowboy, mind you...  No, no. Bob, he liked hats. Specifically of the wide brimmed variety.  And to him, this qualified him as a cowboy.  He was a recent transplant to the planet Neptune from his home planet, Atlepraxis II.  Sadly, Atlepraxis II's leader, Mimzy, decided to outlaw the wearing of wide-brimmed hats and Bob was having none of that, no sir!  So he shipped out to new environs.  Now, Neptune was nice enough.  Lots of gas clouds...reasonably freezing...crooked rings, not like that unartistic planet, Saturn.  Pish with your fancy colours!  You're not artsy at all!  You just found a box of crayons you unwashed miscreant planet!  Yeah.  Bob, he liked Neptune allright.  But after three and a half Neptunian years on the planet (which was only equal to an Atlepraxian week), Bob was beginning to feel just a twinge of homesickness.  "I miss the carnivorous sloop-margles that used to bound in and out of the dunes in the Atlepraxian desert," sayeth Bob.  "I miss the infinite convenience of the three suns that kept my Atlepraxian homeworld in eternal day!  What the hell is this nighttime business, anyway?  How does anyone get anything done when it's so dark?  And what's with all these random points of light in the sky?  They don't do anything.  They don't shed any sort of light on the planet's surface, they don't make any pictures, you can't find your way around with them.  Pish, I say!  Pish!"  So, Bob, he says to his friend, Ed, "Ed, my man, I miss my home.  I miss cave surving in the audial hwho-bangs on the Eastern mleldelnop."  Ed, who's just about had it with his friend's incessant belly-aching, says to Bob, "Really man?  Your planet, Ablebab the Fifth or whatever, sounds like a drag.  Everything sounds like this ridiculous amount of danger and thoroughly unfun.  Furthermore," says Ed, "You had to leave your planet because they outlawed wide-brimmed hats.  I mean, really?  That's your reason for packing up and changing your entire life?  And who wastes their time making stupid laws like outlawing certain kinds of hats?  You, sir, are an idiot and you planetary leader is a bitch."

So endeth Pt. 1 because, you see, work had ended and I went home to watch Fry and Laurie.

Award Winning Banana Bread

It is a constant source of pride that I can call my Banana Bread "Award Winning".  Granted the award it won was just a high school club competition and not some reknowned culinary thing, but I'll take it.  It's been awhile since I've been able to bake a lot and since baking is my favourite way to warm up the house when it's cold, I figured it was time.  Anyway, here is the recipe for my banana bread...

• 2 ripe medium bananas
• 1 8oz pkg cream cheese
• 3 eggs
• 6 tbsp butter
• 1 c. flour
• 1 c. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 375.  This first part is my favourite...at least the way I do it anyway.  I don't have a standing mixer, so I put the bananas, cream cheese, and butter into a bowl and pulverize it with a potato masher!  Yeah, I'm a crazy person...  So you're gonna beat that untill it's soft and add the eggs and vanilla.  Once this is completely mixed, it'll kind of look like a custard if you did it right.  Next add the sugar and mix it in completely.  Then the soda, powder, and salt.  Last add the flour.  Pour the fully combined mixture into a greased bread pan (the ones I use are glass) and bake for somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour and twenty minutes.  I've had a lot of angry ovens in the past, so I've just always had to keep an eye on it and check often with a toothpick.

Things I REALLY wish teenagers understood about auditions.

So, I decided to hop off and watch Footloose auditions on Tuesday and teacher-me kicked in wanting to fix so many little problems I saw...couple of issues with that, though; 1. I'm not their teacher and 2. in order to illustrate why they shouldn't do some of these things, I'd have to use some teaching unfriendly language.  Therefore, I'm gonna put it on the internet where I will not be fired for saying such things and hopefully, this'll help at least one someone out there.  There are three lists.  The first is a list of things that I used to think were common sense and maybe just hadn't floated into the heads of these kiddos.  The second is just a few singing tips that are a lot easier said than done.  The third is a few voiced irritations toward the behind-the-scenes people.  Here goes...

List One: Wow, the lights are really bright, aren't they?

1. For those of you whose largest stage debut to date was in the school's gymacafetorium, let me tell you something: stage lights are bright.  Blindingly so.  That's where all those cliched phrases about actors getting lost in the blinding lights came from.  (Ugh.)  Now that you know this, there's really no need to mention it to the people you're auditioning for.  Chances are they know it.  And when you hear the phrase, "Wow!  Those are really bright lights!" from 60 different kids, it can get very taxing on the nerves. 
2. Wear nice clothes.  It makes you look like you care.  And take off your damn hat.
3. If you bring a CD to sing with, for the love of all that is right in the world, make sure it's actually a karaoke track.  If I can't hear you over Journey, I can't tell how well you can sing.  It also says that you probably can't hold your own with a chorus behind you.  Neither of those are a good sign for a director.
4. Do NOT injure yourself during the dance audition.  I don't care how cute or cool the move you just did was.  A cool dance move is so not worth having a gimped character for the rest of the show.
5. Allright, this one isn't necessarily common sense, but it needs to be said.  Ladies, do not toss your hair every five minutes.  To the casting committee it makes you look nervous, fidget-y, and not in control of your body.  To the other female auditioners, it just makes you look like a stuck up bitch.  Hopefully, neither of those sentences is true of you and you don't want to be perceived as such. 

List Two: The walls make for a good audience, I promise.

1. If you are going to bring sheet music, try very hard to find a copy with the chord changes written above the measures.  (They're the things that look a little like this: Gm7, BbM+6...stuff like that.)  It helps the accompanist fake their way through your song if the written notes are really hard to play without lots of practice. 
2. On that note, when you've got an accompanist whose sight reading your music, things might not go perfectly like you'd like them.  Don't freak out and DON'T try to make it look like everything's the piano player's fault.  It's in your best interest to know your song backwards and forwards and plow through when things go awry.
3. Did I mention practice?  Practice.  When you're done practicing, get a captive audience and sing some more.  Sing to the wall, sing in front of a mirror, sing for your friends...what-have-you.  Most people who work in music have magic powers that allow us to be able to tell the difference between a nervous brain spasm and I'm-so-awesome-I-don't-need-to-practice syndrome.  The latter is soooo not endearing.
4. Breathe, but not too much.  You know when you speak and you just naturally breathe where commas and periods would fall if what you said were written?  It's the same things with singing.  Breathe where the commas and periods are and you'll be allright.  If that doesn't quite feel right, say the words out loud as though you were speaking to a friend and make a note of where you took breaths.
5. Chill out.  Natural you will always be better than overacting you.
6. This may be difficult for you to know the difference, but please pick a song that is in your comfortable singing range.  You may have picked a song that you like, but if you can't hit some of the notes because they're too low or high, it sounds bad; you'll normally end up either cutting out in those spots or singing wonky notes.  And while a seasoned musician will be able to tell that that's what the problem is, we're still stuck with the issue that you sang something out of your range and we didn't get to hear what you sound like in your range.  Essentially, we don't know what you sound like and that makes it hard to give you a role. 
7. Gentlemen, there is nothing wrong with singing in your upper register.  Just because you're not a low, growl-y bass, doesn't mean you're not manly.  Hell, tenors are hot and the majority of musical theatre roles are written for them, not the basses.

List Three: It is just never okay.

1. If you're going to cut a person of in the middle of their song, please at least wait untill a cadence.  It is irritating and jarring to get cut off smack in the middle and because of how we're trained with music in modern society, it actually makes the person singing feel like they've done poorly to be cut off so unceremoniously.
2. Being a choreographer does NOT give you free license to be a raging bitch.  Being a director or member of the production staff doesn't either, but this seems to be a pretty common choregrapher character flaw.  Theatre is a professional community and that means it is built upon respect.  You have to show your performers the same amount of respect you expect them to show you regardless of age or skill level.  I've had really nice and awesome choreographers take uncoordinated people like me and turn them into a spinning, awesome-looking, dance-y thing.  Respectful choreographers (and directors, stage managers, etc.) get their performers to learn steps quicker and better.  The bitchy ones get ignored and argued with.  I mean, really, you're only making more work for yourself.  Especially with teenagers!  What, do you have a death wish or something?  An adult is going to write a letter of complaint or something reasonable like that when you suck; a teenager's gonna put krazy glue in your socks.  Choose wisely. 
3. Parents.  Chill out.  Chill out, chill out, chill out.  You're making everyone crazy.  Sit in the back, watch politely, keep your comments to yourself, and after it's all over, tell your kid he/she did a good job. 

Really, after all of that, I guess the important bit is to not get discouraged by stuff and keep auditioning.  Practice makes perfect and what-all. 

Bits and Pieces

My brain is just beyond scattered at work and over the past week I've collected an odd mix of thoughts and events and I just need to write them down to get them out of my head. 

I have a great deal of trouble making eye contact with someone in an involved conversation.  I really hope people don't think I'm bored or ignoring them - most of the time, I am listening intently - but I think I'm focusing so damn hard that my multitasking brain short circuits or something.  It's like trying to block out all of the minor distractions just makes them worse. 

I've been thinking a lot about shoes lately.  Yes, shoes.  Spurred mainly by a conversation about how children don't wear loafers ever under any circumstances.  Anyway, shoes really can say an awful lot about a person.  My favourite pair of shoes are special edition fair trade green chuck taylors with silhouettes of trees printed on the side that I bought from a thrift store.  If that doesn't say something about me, I don't know what does. 

There's a lady who comes into the lab who likes to talk to herself...a lot.  She's generally pretty harmless, but today, after loitering at the scanner for about half an hour, she walked by my desk and gave me a mean, threating, contemptuous sort of look.  I have this bad habit of looking up from my desk and smiling at people, which only made things worse.  As she started to walk off, I heard her mutter to her imaginary friend, "...probably accused of murder too."  o.O

My addiction to sour cherry flavoured candies is likely a bad thing.

Every few weeks or so I go through one of these bizarre desperate-need-to-self-improve sort of phases that often involves changing how I react to things or what I think of people or what have you.  Recently, however, I came to the conclusion that there would be no need for me to change anything about myself if I could just learn to not say the thoughts in my head aloud. 

Somewhere, someone in the world, someone is listening to Sibelius and it's his fault the weather's like this. 

I spend a lot of time oblivious to social cues and such things, but man, the amount of people who have no sense of decorum or manners is just staggering.

As I am numbering the measures in my Rachmaninov Vespers, a patron asks, "What instrument do you play?"  "I sing."  "You know, some people say that the voice is the original instrument.  Do you believe that?  I would've thought it was the drum."  "Maybe, but I think people probably learned how to scream before they learned how to hit things."

Things are more impressive looking when they're in a different alphabet.

Having a ruptured eardrum is a lot like living inside a honkytonk piano; things echo at inappropriate times, everything is just slightly out of tune, and it's impossible to hear clearly anyone talking.

I very much need to go on a road trip.

Getting Over It.

In short version news, attempt no. 73 at learning to stop biting my nails is going pretty well and my new job is awesome.

In long version, I've been thinking and evaluating a lot lately.  I have two issues I've been dealing with and one of them I've sort of figured out and the other is just probably going to stick around for awhile.  The latter is just that I'm lonely and I apparently became a coward at some point.  I've been working on psyching myself up to making a move in a direction for a few weeks and no amount of support and logic seems to be enough to push me in that direction.  So, I think things are going to stay that way for awhile.  Maybe resigning myself to such a thing will irritate me enough that I'll break the pattern.

I've also been struggling with authority lately.  The sentence "Power does not equate knowledge and experience." comes to mind.  The overarching theme of that particular thought has plagued me for most of my life.  I'm always finding myself in situations where I think, why on earth are you in charge of this nonsense and did you even think before you started doling out orders that make no sense?  Normally, I'm pretty complacent in situations such as these just as long the person in question is nice or personable.  When you start making decisions that hurt or upset me or others, I pretty much fly off the handle internally. 

I've been stuck in this situation for the past two weeks and it's been making me miserable.  My friends have helped by allowing me to hash things out and stress and I didn't have to worry about rumours getting thrown about as a result.  Trust me, adding that to my already visible disdain would be the opposite of helpful.  The other bit that helped is me finally centering on the fact that knowledge and experience does not equate power.  We've all had those moments where we look at what's going on and say, "I could do this better.  My ideas make more sense," but the thing of it is that that's not what gets you in a position where you're in charge.  So, in this situation, I have two options: either get willing to play the local politics or shut up and deal with it.  Guess which option I'm going with...