i think it's a joke...

so i just got done with my presentation in that film class. the teacher loved it, or so it seemed. and ya know what i did to prepare for it? hardly a thing. i went to bed last night early (12:30, which is early for me) because i was pretty tired having only watched the movie and done nothing else in preparation. so i set my alarm for 5:30 so i could wake up and figure something out. well, i snoozed it until about 7:30 (class was at 9:30), took a shower, sat down at the ol' keyboard, turned the movie on, quickly transcribed the melody of 'honeymoon hotel' from busby berkley's 'footlight parade' and decided i was going to talk about how the song could pretty much serve any kind of spectacle you wanted to put on the screen. it really has no defining melodic or harmonic movement or rhythmic characteristics but serves really well as 'scaffolding' for which pretty much anything can be built on top of. i thought it was a pretty bs point but the prof liked it so that's all that matters. seems like the less effort i put in, the better grade i'll get. fantastic. (i actually think it's sad)

anyways, i really don't have time to be writing right now. i really need to practice my concerto competition piece before my orchestra rehearsal cause immediately after that i'm rehearsing with my pianist. and immediately after that i'm going to a concert, then to a help session for my improv class which gets me to 10:30 and the day is over. tomorrow is no better. neither is thursday. a;lsdfjkals;dkfj

hopefully you all aren't as busy as me this week, cause it's bummin' me out. if you are, then yay, we can commiserate together. have a good week!

love,
james

who are you people?

remember that time when i was a freshman and i thought i knew everything? like how i thought edwards bass trombones were the best horns out there and absolutely nothing would sound better than them? yeah, well, turns out my horn sucks and it's taken me this long to realize it. basically, the gist of the story is that i sent my horn out for repairs and while it was away, i played one of the school's instruments and found out it was better than mine. i sent mine away because my valves leaked and my slide wasn't so great. while it was gone, i played on the conn 62h that the school owns. at this time, my lessons started going really well and my playing was improving. many people were telling my that they were noticing a huge improvement (and most of them didn't even realize i was playing a different horn). my horn finally came back and i was anxious to figure out if i was actually improving or if the school horn was the reason i was sounding better. to my sadness, it was, in fact, the horn. i guess i should have prefaced this by saying that i'm a firm believer that the instrument doesn't make the musician. i by no means blame my instrument for holding me back or anything stupid like that, but wow, is there a difference between these two instruments. and ya know what really sucks? i have no money to spend on a new trombone. time to save my pennies i guess... if any of you win the lottery and have a soft spot in your heart for the bass trombone, lemmeno.

ok, end trombone talk.

time to tell you about that time strangers came into our apartment...

(so) i got back to the apartment after going to the gym today and i was in the kitchen makin' my protein shake (yummy!) and i noticed a car out in the parking lot that i didn't recognize with two women in it. i say i didn't recognize it bc our parking lot is really small and all the cars look familiar now. anyways, they were looking up at me through the window so i kinda stepped behind the refrigerator as i was not wearing a shirt. why wasn't i wearing a shirt you ask? because i had just gotten done at the gym and i like to take it off and admire how huge my muscles are after working out, obviously. actually, the real reason is because it was a lil warm in the apartment and i was about to take a shower. but i digress. after getting out of view of the window i hear a knock at the door. i have no shirt on and colin is sitting at the table in his boxers (yeah, come visit us sometime...) so i yell, 'be right there,' run to my room, grab a shirt, and open the door to find a lady who seems just a bit younger than my mom standing there. she explains to me that she used to live in this apartment like 15 years ago and was wondering if her and her friend (who was her roommate in this apartment) could come in and see the place. awkward, but, okay, whatevs. so they come in and are lookin around and talkin' about how the carpet was new when they lived here because they did something to the old floor and how there used to be a really bad cockroach problem and yadda yadda. then, they go into my room... at this point, it hits me, what the f is going on? colin is still sitting at the table in his boxers and i'm in the kitchen and there are two middle aged women in my bedroom. then it gets interesting when one of them starts talking about what she did in that bedroom, which then prompts the other to start talking about what (and by what, i mean whom) she did in colin's bedroom. after a few awkward laughs they realize how creepy they are being and leave. congratulations bloomington. just when i thought the weirdness was coming to end you send those people to our door. awesome.

i'm sure colin will tell you all about it from his point of view in his blog.

ok, i'm done now. and what have you learned from all of this? hopefully nothing.

love,
james

thesis? who needs it?

so i just got done reading the 'model paper' my professor posted for us all to read. definitely no thesis in that opening paragraph. i dunno, i could go on about what i thought of it but what good does that do anyone? probably none. i'm not the quitter type, but i think i'm gonna surrender and do the educational thing and just kiss ass more in this class. i clearly wasted a copious amount of time studying the score in the library, doing research, and thinking about my paper way too much. i have a feeling i also wasted quite a bit of time preparing for my presentation, so i'm done doin' that. for the remainder of the semester, every ounce of effort for this class will come straight out of my ass in the form of bull shit. wait, that'd have to come out of a bull's ass wouldn't it. damn. i lose again.

well, what do you want to hear about now? hmm...

oh, i know, you want to hear all about how much ass i kicked in sight singing today. yeah, i got done singing this thing all by myself and the teacher literally stood up from the piano, threw his arms in the air, and cheered. yeah. i rule. oh, and it wasn't because it was the first time i sang something correctly but because i was the first person in 5 groups he had already heard that morning that sang it right. so go me. does that sound braggy? i hope so, because it's supposed to. i'm the f'n man. actually, if i was the f'n man, i would have passed the entrance exam in the first place. whoops.

ok, i've got a rehearsal in half an hour followed by another rehearsal after that with some super famous conductor fella. his name is herbert blomstedt and i think he conducted san francisco at one time. he's supposed to be amazing so i'm looking forward to it. i love brahms 2 as well so it should be fun as long as the strings don't decide to be bishes.

hope all is well with y'all.

love,
james

a quick one before i go to the gym (that's what she said)

ok, i just felt like writing something real quick before i scamper off to the gym. my goal for this workout session will be to release some aggression i'm feeling towards one of my professors. basically, i just got back from a 'how are you doing in my class' one on one meeting/session thinger and i'm quite frustrated with the way he interpreted my midterm paper. you see, i'm not a schooly, and typically i don't get upset about grades or anything (i'm actually not upset about the grade he gave me), but the way he's been running the class preceeds my being frustrated today. having spent 3 semesters with dr. peters, i feel like i have a pretty good grasp of how a paper should be written. the way i remember it, you're supposed to make an opening thesis and hint at how you plan on backing this thesis up. then you make your points in a logical order and recap what your original point was. well, apparently they don't do it that way in canada (which is where he's from) because he complained that i just wrote a bunch of paragraphs each with a separate point (which all served to back up my thesis) instead of, i dunno, rambling incessantly? my favorite part of our 'talk' was when he said 'for example, you give a great analysis of the music in your first two pages, but my question for you is, so what?' so what? (he actually wrote 'so what' on my paper) did you read the rest of the paper mr. canadian professor man? did you read my opening thesis? if you did then you'd know so what. as;dlfkjasd;lfkj

he plans on posting a couple of the papers that he thought were really good. i really don't mean to be cocky or anything when i say this, but i really think colin and i are two of the more intelligent people in this class (which i guess isn't saying much) so i really look forward to reading these.

oh yeah, and how do you give a paper that doesn't make a point a B+ anyways? silly canucks!

end rant. begin workout.

love,
james

ps - i really don't hate canadians. just professors who are vague.

helwo blog

welp, i think i'm gonna start spendin' some time on the blog and less time on the book of faces. seriously though, where did they get the name 'facebook?' i understand that people put pictures of themselves on their profiles and it's common for that picture to focus mostly on your face since it's not that big, but 'facebook?' sounds like it could be the title of some really creepy scary movie where the villain makes a book out of people's faces. or maybe that'd be a comedy? like, you walk into a room and all of a sudden your face turns into a book. i wonder what book my face would turn into... it'd probably turn into a blazhevich or similar etude book. how depressing.

anyways, yeah, facebook is getting old for me. i think i've tried many times to return to more substantial means of communication, such as telephone, e-mails, and actual hand written letters (i know, i know, i still owe you a letter hayley), but i'm gonna try even harder this time. i just think it'd be a lot more interesting to hear how a dude is doing from the actual dude himself. ok, for atleast the rest of this month, i'm not going to login to bookface unless someone has sent me a message of some kind. and if you decide to be a smartass and send me a message just to make me login, i'll probably just ignore you and not give you the pleasure of knowing you got me really really good. on the other hand, if you send me a message by other means, i'll probably think you're really cool and respond letting you know how cool you really are. deal? deal.

guess what. i just realized that i've written two paragraphs already and haven't started a single sentence with the word 'so.' i'm awesome. oh, and pat, i'm fully aware that i don't capitalize. i find it unnecessary and even uncool. if you want to be really cool, you need to rely less on capital letters and more on correct punctuation and sentence structure. you also have to rely on liking things such as turtles and cows, both of which i find to be amazing creatures.

ok, let's recap -

things that suck = spaceface, capital letters, and movies made about said spaceface.
things that rule = phone calls, e-mails, letters, non-capital letters, turtles, & cows.

got it? good.

with much sweetness and love,
james

post scriptum: is there something out there that automatically lets you know when i've updated my blog? i mean, really, i haven't written in this thing in months and i get 3 comments the next day. how's that happen?

a homecoming miracle

so i've taken a few hiatuses from this blog and every time i come back i say something like 'so it's been a while since i've posted' and then give some stupid update trying to recap everything that's happened since i posted last. well, i'm a graduate student now, so i'm gonna up my standards and write a better 'first post in 9 months' post and just pretend like i never quit writing. you can help by leaving comments that have nothing to do with the fact that i haven't written in this thing in forever. comments like 'glad you're writing again' or 'hey james, it's good to see you back on the blog train' are highly discouraged. in fact, you're gonna get negative points if you do such a thing. you've been warned.

so this weekend is homecoming weekend at IU and let me tell ya, it's been a special one. last night the girl (colin) and i went to this sweet irish pub called 'the irish lion' and drank the beers with some of the cooler undergrad trombone students here. i had two half yards of newcastle, an irish car bomb, and two bowls of coddle. it was amazing. when i got home i ate a cookie and passed out watching the new episode of the office. i hope they go back to making fun of dwight soon instead of making us feel sorry for him.

anyways, after a rehearsal this morning, i'm back at the apartment layin on the couch with all the windows in the apartment open because it was so amazing outside doin' random crap on my laptop when i hear this dude outside yelling. i look out and he's standing just across the street screaming into his cell phone. i quickly alerted colin, who instinctively grabbed his camera. the rest can be seen here.

warning: if profane langauge offends you, or you are in a place that profane langauge shouldn't be heard, don't press the play button. otherwise, enjoy the hilarity.

good stuff huh? i gotta be honest, it's a pretty standard occurrence down here to see people being so awesome at life. i guess maybe i feel sorry for him just a little bit, but c'mon man, if you've got problems, maybe the best place to solve them isn't outside the apartment of colin and james.

as i write about all the excellence down here i can hear cars racing around outside. so many winners.

yeah, so there ya have it. another post to the ol' blog. i'd tell you that i plan to write more often but that would mean admitting that i haven't written in a long time which totally goes against what i talked about earlier.

so tomorrow = 3 rehearsals and a concert. thank you sunday, for being just another busy day in my week. you rule. i do get to play brahms 2 and la gazza ladra though. that'll be fun. guess i should think about gettin' some sleep, though.

thanks for reading.

love,
james

post scriptum: the goal for my next post is to not start any sentence with the word "so." i can do better. i will do better.