October 23, 2006 at 6:18 PM

Always take a clock into the practice room. What I could've sworn was forty five minutes was a two hour long practice. This is what happens when your boyfriend is not there to kick you out of the practice room when his alotted time has come; you end up practicing far longer than your schedule allows for, and the entire male population (well, at least the entire Ave Maria male population who happen to be in their dorms) is doomed to listen to a squeaky violinist miss thousands of shifts, scrape through out of tune double stops, and repeat things over and over...and...over.......again. Ah, practice! What your typical non-music major perceives as half an hour spent playing fiddle-tunes and running through flawless eight octave arpeggios for the fun of it.

Well, the guys in Caterbury hall are now disillusioned.

Fall Break (a.k.a. Fall Extended-Weekend) is here, which inevitably means that Natasha gets two days to study without lectures springing up in her way. My doomed Chemistry exam #2 announced itself in bold, bright, and morbid colors on my calendar this week. Thursday to be exact. Other lovely additions for this week include exponentials, a test on "The Srewtape Letters", an essay on C.S. Lewis' views on Love and Marriage as expressed in "The Screwtape Letters", a chemistry lab report on our explorations in spectronomy, and to crown the week off, a concert at the Phil, courtesy of Howard Shelley.

Howard Shelley has been called the greatest living pianist, a title he easily lives up to. His critically acclaimed recordings of Chopin, Mozart, and Mendelssohn are held in high esteem and his fine recordings of the Rachmaninoff concertos are considered by many to be the finest in existence. Shelley's artistic improvisation, his gentle and exact style, and his genteel personality make him a favorite among both the audience and musicians in Naples. Last Saturday I was lucky to attend a performance of his featuring three Mozart Piano Concerto played back to back. There is no doubt; Howard Shelley is the finest pianist I have ever seen. I look forward to his performance of the Mendelssohn this weekend!

And now, as usual, I must run off to my studies, to be taunted by electrons, nodes, exponentials, and functional domains. Au revoir!

~natasha

P.S. yes, my meds really do consist of nasty things like pig brains, veal bones, and cow adrenals. In fact, when my doctor opened a jar of one, she said "Woah! These smell like roadkill!!!"

P.P.S. I'm going to (try to) attach my orchestral debut (about three years ago) because I never did attach it in the first place...

****EDIT****
Sorry, guys, I attached the wrong file...That is our orchestra but I'm actually not playing that solo...lol.......whoopsy....how'd that happen anyways....

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on October 24, 2006 at 6:18 AM

Ah, the lovely aroma of bovine adrenals. I had to dissect many of them and then go home and cook dinner. I'm sure the atmosphere was sweeter in the practice room.

From Emily Grossman
Posted on October 24, 2006 at 6:36 AM

Oh my gosh, you took me right back to 7th grade. We played that very arrangement, and it was my very first piece to play in a full orchestra. I had no clue what was going on at the time, but I loved every second of it. Your solo is excellent, and the orchestra sounds much better than ours did... Thanks so much for the treat.

Which one is the poet, and which one is the peasant, anyway? I never could decide.

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October 23, 2006 at 6:18 PM

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