The year 2010 has been very random. I had a dire fallout with my love for music, I reconsidered the past three years of my university life over and over again and I asked myself -- do I really want to do this with my life? Like everything else I had been doing this past year, I gave up on it, and I convinced myself that I didn't want to study music history anymore. It was then I realized that I was going to graduate next year with the world's most useless degree.
Then June came around and the 2010/2011 timetable for the year showed up on Western's student site, and I started to look at the course I could take for the next year. While I had convinced myself that I just didn't care, I found myself frustrated with the amount of overlapping and available music history courses my faculty was offering. My biggest obstacle right now is deciding between Romantic Opera History, and Late 20th Century Music. I know both of the profs teaching each course, and I was torn between the two.
What better way to chose than to listen to some Romantic Opera and Late 20th Century Music (by which I don't mean popular music)? I have lots of Late 20th Century Music: lots of John Adams, late Copeland, Bernstein, and the Canadian R. Murray Schafer, to name a few. But upon looking at my itunes collection, I have very little Romantic opera that does not include my Norton Anthologies. Hence my decision to take Romantic Opera history to learn more. I hope to put some new discoveries in Opera up here (hopefully there won't be too many standard Romantic Operas, I love to learn about the obscure works of composers).
Here's to another long hiatus, as I will be away for the summer.
xo Kate
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Taylor Swift Lifestyle
So Taylor Swift is a pretty popular singer/songwriter these days. As a Classical music junkie she wouldn't be my first choice in comparison to Gustav Mahler or Claude Debussy, or Mozart for that matter, but when you want to sing along to something that isn't in German or Italian it's a pretty good choice.
As pleasant as her songs are, they are all about the same thing - as are multiple artists' songs these days - girls meets boy, girl likes boy, boy doesn't notice girl, and girl is sad until boy notices her. Or they've broken up and life is tres sad. Of course, the first notion is something the majority of today's girls can relate to. Sadly for myself, I can relate to the second and first notion all within the same time frame.
My boyfriend of would-be-3 years broke up with me last week. It was a long time coming so there really isn't any lingering sadness there, but at the same time, this upcoming Sunday would have been our 3-year-anniversary, so I have a feeling that it will be a pretty lonely day. Of course, at the same time, I have a fondness for one of my guy friends, who doesn't seem to reciprocate my affection. Or at least makes it very difficult to remark whether or not he does.
So this post is about Taylor Swift and how unfortunate it is to relate to her teeny-bopper songs when I am about to turn 22 in a few months. Grr, I thought I was over this and well beyond this stupid faze, but apparently not. It makes me want to write my own love-story-crap, but of course as an advocate for (what has now been deemed) "Classical" music, I think I would rather committ suicide than succumb to that.
On a more positive note, my current favourite composer to be listening to is Sir Edward Elgar. LOVE does not describe how I feel about his music. When you listen to well-composed music, it's like being in love, but it's much more liberating and full of passion. If I can feel this way in listening to music, who needs love? Of course, music lacks to evoke the same physical responses of course, but at least it's less disappointing than love.
My alternative-folk composer to listen to is Fiest. "Let it Die" is the song of the day.
Give yourself some love,
xo
As pleasant as her songs are, they are all about the same thing - as are multiple artists' songs these days - girls meets boy, girl likes boy, boy doesn't notice girl, and girl is sad until boy notices her. Or they've broken up and life is tres sad. Of course, the first notion is something the majority of today's girls can relate to. Sadly for myself, I can relate to the second and first notion all within the same time frame.
My boyfriend of would-be-3 years broke up with me last week. It was a long time coming so there really isn't any lingering sadness there, but at the same time, this upcoming Sunday would have been our 3-year-anniversary, so I have a feeling that it will be a pretty lonely day. Of course, at the same time, I have a fondness for one of my guy friends, who doesn't seem to reciprocate my affection. Or at least makes it very difficult to remark whether or not he does.
So this post is about Taylor Swift and how unfortunate it is to relate to her teeny-bopper songs when I am about to turn 22 in a few months. Grr, I thought I was over this and well beyond this stupid faze, but apparently not. It makes me want to write my own love-story-crap, but of course as an advocate for (what has now been deemed) "Classical" music, I think I would rather committ suicide than succumb to that.
On a more positive note, my current favourite composer to be listening to is Sir Edward Elgar. LOVE does not describe how I feel about his music. When you listen to well-composed music, it's like being in love, but it's much more liberating and full of passion. If I can feel this way in listening to music, who needs love? Of course, music lacks to evoke the same physical responses of course, but at least it's less disappointing than love.
My alternative-folk composer to listen to is Fiest. "Let it Die" is the song of the day.
Give yourself some love,
xo
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Maybe "prospective foodie" would have been a better blog name?
So apparently I fail at being a blogger, since I haven't blogged since... oh, I don't know... June 9th, and it's now July 19th, soon to be July 20th/09. Awesome.
The sad truth is that I have quite the average life - aside from being a completely psychotic Harry Potter fan and a huuge Music Geek. (Did I mention that I have Potter Puppet Pals? I made them myself; copyright to Neil C though who has the original idea and I just sort of copie illegally...) I've been spending my summer the way the average student does, and that is by working minimum wage for approximately 40 hours or more per week in hopes of making enough to pay for tuition and books for the upcoming school year. My only bonus to my job is that I have a super awesome co-worker, Kristen, and we both get some pretty good tips... on most days.
The inspiration for rambling on like this is from reading Julie Powell's "Julie & Julia", which is the novel which inspired the script for the upcoming movie of the same name. It stars Amy Adams, Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci... who are all fantastic. I am looking forward to it also because I am a huge Julia Child fan, and hopefully when my no-longer existing student budget will no longer hinder me, I will be able to become a full-fledged foodie. Fingers crossed. The book itself is quite fantastic, I highly recommend it.
In my "spare time" when I'm not working I've mostly been reading and going to see some artsy movies. So far I've finished the Twilight Series (which ended so poorly), re-read the "Half Blood Prince" and the "Deathly Hallows from Harry Potter", read "My Sister's Keeper" again. Also my boyfriend's mother handed me "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" which had me crying within the first 30 pages. A beautiful book. And right now I am reading "Julie & Julia". A lot of my book choices have to do with the movies I've been looking forward to, since I am one of those people who have to read the book before they see the movie. Which will on occasion have me scrambling to finished the final few pages before the film starts. But I also love the artsy movies which aren't inspired from a book, which are spontaneous and then don't create these expectations which most people are disappointed by. The list of movies I've seen so far since May include:
Up!
Ghosts of Girlfriend's Past
Little Ashes
Away We Go
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (twive on open day, fyi)
Sunshine Cleaning
The Hangover
Most of which have been seen with my boyfriend, lol.
Anyways, I've mostly been ranting hysterically, but is that not the point of blogging? Alas, see you next time.
xo Kate
The sad truth is that I have quite the average life - aside from being a completely psychotic Harry Potter fan and a huuge Music Geek. (Did I mention that I have Potter Puppet Pals? I made them myself; copyright to Neil C though who has the original idea and I just sort of copie illegally...) I've been spending my summer the way the average student does, and that is by working minimum wage for approximately 40 hours or more per week in hopes of making enough to pay for tuition and books for the upcoming school year. My only bonus to my job is that I have a super awesome co-worker, Kristen, and we both get some pretty good tips... on most days.
The inspiration for rambling on like this is from reading Julie Powell's "Julie & Julia", which is the novel which inspired the script for the upcoming movie of the same name. It stars Amy Adams, Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci... who are all fantastic. I am looking forward to it also because I am a huge Julia Child fan, and hopefully when my no-longer existing student budget will no longer hinder me, I will be able to become a full-fledged foodie. Fingers crossed. The book itself is quite fantastic, I highly recommend it.
In my "spare time" when I'm not working I've mostly been reading and going to see some artsy movies. So far I've finished the Twilight Series (which ended so poorly), re-read the "Half Blood Prince" and the "Deathly Hallows from Harry Potter", read "My Sister's Keeper" again. Also my boyfriend's mother handed me "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" which had me crying within the first 30 pages. A beautiful book. And right now I am reading "Julie & Julia". A lot of my book choices have to do with the movies I've been looking forward to, since I am one of those people who have to read the book before they see the movie. Which will on occasion have me scrambling to finished the final few pages before the film starts. But I also love the artsy movies which aren't inspired from a book, which are spontaneous and then don't create these expectations which most people are disappointed by. The list of movies I've seen so far since May include:
Up!
Ghosts of Girlfriend's Past
Little Ashes
Away We Go
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (twive on open day, fyi)
Sunshine Cleaning
The Hangover
Most of which have been seen with my boyfriend, lol.
Anyways, I've mostly been ranting hysterically, but is that not the point of blogging? Alas, see you next time.
xo Kate
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
So I've got a blog..
You know how some people update their facebook status every 5 seconds? I don't even understand how that's possible since I just spent nearly an hour debating what to name my blog. Not just because there was limited availability of names, but because I obviously wanted something that related to me, and hence how I came up with "prospective musicologist extraordinaire" seeing as I'm going to be studying musicology... and I am pretty awesome ;)
Lots of my friends have blogs, and sure it's just a way to rant about their lives and whatnot, but it's also a tad more formal than facebook, giving more of an inside perspective into their thoughts, rather than the limited 100 characters for your facebook status. (I realize I haven't mentioned myspace, but I have never had one and I'm not about to start!)
Anyway, feel free to check with my updates. If you care? I hope.
Much love xo
Lots of my friends have blogs, and sure it's just a way to rant about their lives and whatnot, but it's also a tad more formal than facebook, giving more of an inside perspective into their thoughts, rather than the limited 100 characters for your facebook status. (I realize I haven't mentioned myspace, but I have never had one and I'm not about to start!)
Anyway, feel free to check with my updates. If you care? I hope.
Much love xo
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)