The Silent Sniper: Sleep is a Solstice

Warning: This post may not be 100% coherent. Why? Not much sleep, coffee depravation (one cup of coffee does not suffice), and because Daleks/Cybermen/The Master want to exterminate my Research assignments by throwing it into a fire pit.

This week in  “Chronicles of Graduate School Living”, we can view ze graduate student recognizing that sleep is fleeting or while sleeping he wakes up at 2 am scared he missed a deadline. This week has been…. long. I’ve felt that everyday is a new Tuesday (for some reason I hate Tuesday’s more than Mondays. Weird. I know). Maybe it’s because I did not have as a productive last weekend as I thought I would have. Also, I noticed that the books, articles, and scores I have to read, read and write, and analyze, respectively are adding up. Every time I finish one, two more appears. So, it’s like Pokemon (nerd alert). It’s when you are running through the grass and just when you’re about to get out 100 Weedles appear or if in you’re a cave 1000 Zubats come and attack you with confuse ray (wow. I reached a new low… I shake my head at myself). But, in the midst of this there has to be something good, right? Right.

Some of the good news are that I’m finally “recovering myself as a conductor” which means…? I’m finally loosing up in my conducting course. Which is amazing and awesome. Why? Because… it’s good. Another thing that’s good is that some of my fellow professors have asked me about my research topic (which you can read a slight intro here). The good thing is that I’ve researched a bit more in the subject, and I get more excited about it. The bad thing? The actual information I need to further my investigation is still in Washington, DC. This irks me, scares me, and… downright terrifies me, because if I don’t get Dr. Klemme (aka the only HUMAN in  the United States of America who has done something with Henk Badings, the dutch composer I’m researching) I have to do everything from scratch, and… I really don’t want to do that. I have enough score analyses to do (and so little time).  Another epic, amazing, and awesome thing that may happen in my life (next semester) is that I can enroll in a graduate composition course. Notice the adjectives that evoke the happiness that is resurging from my heart. I am extremely excited because I’ve always wanted to take some composition courses and I now I can! *insert happy dance* *insert solemn dance* *insert breakdown, because that’s next semester and I still need to do so many things until that happens (hurrah! Run-on Sentences!)*

A good thing that I liked about this week (I still have tomorrow, but I hope it continues in the same vibe that I’ve had, so far, today) is that I had the opportunity to conduct University Singers. I conducted Lauridsen’s Ave Maria, which is a beautiful piece and I love it. It was pretty cool because we had students from Illinois District IV, and they saw me conduct (yay me).  Now I have to recollect my belongings which are thrown all over this table, and prepare myself for choir rehearsal. After this I’ll throw myself into the neverending paperwork (and drown dramatically while practicing my conducting, baton and all).