Filed under: My Day | Tags: adult, alive, ariel, basketball, boy, brendan, cd, cds, chamber choir, childhood, choir, chorus, class, Damen, eighth, essay, essays, Grubbs, gym, interesting, lerew, leukemia, making music, meaningful, melody, mermaid, mr. lerew, music, musical, My Day, personal, piece, poignant, quotes, Ruth, sarcasm, sarcastic, serious, today, tres, unexpected, walker, Writing
I am busy uploading the nine CDs Katie made me into my iTunes.
I loooovelovelove music (durrh), but I don’t get much of a chance to hear the contemporary stuff. Or really, any stuff besides classical and showtunes.
Soo, I am excited. Nine CDs. KT surely is my hero :D
I am currently listening to “The Little Mermaid”– still from a musical– but hey, I didn’t have it before… I freakin’ love music. Now, if dad would only shut off the boob tube and I could listen without worrying if it will bother him.
Hum da dum. There’s a lot to write about today, I’m just not sure about where to start. I think I’ll just wing it with my stream of consciousness and see what happens. Transitions from thought to thought might not be so hot. Haha.
Alright, so– today in chamber choir, we only sang for about seven minutes, but in those few short moments I felt like I was actually making music– and I have never felt that way when it comes to chamber. I always felt that, okay, this is a fun class, I learn some things and use my vocal chords. That’s good enough for me, I can make music on my own time. But today, we made melody come alive. And it was exciting.
We began the class with a powerpoint presentation. Mr. Lerew read off the slides, which all were comprised of quotes he took from our essays. We each were required to compose an essay based on what we were able to take fr0m one of our pieces, “How Can I Keep from Singing?” (arr. Gwyneth Walker). I, personally, think that the essays were a great idea. We all seemed to have essentially the same ideas about the piece, despite the numerous differences in our choir. The Walker speaks of music as a rock– it can help one get through anything. And it’s true.
The thoughts that were aired today in class were very meaningful, but the most poignant moment in class occurred when Mr. Lerew discussed his feelings about the piece, and what it means to him.
It turns out that our distinguished, sarcastic, and entertaining but serious teacher was diagnosed with leukemia when he was in eighth grade. I can tell you right now that my jaw dropped. My heart went out to that little boy, forced out of childhood so rudely, with such a serious condition. I felt like I understood my teacher a little more, now that he’d shared that very personal (or so it seemed to me) piece of his life with us. That was a pretty meaningful (and unexpected) part of my day.
Oh, and on a lighter note, Brendan, Damen, Grubbs, Ruth and I schooled up in basketball today.
Filed under: Random Thoughts | Tags: antigone, apollo, belief, believe, bishop, castle, chess, choice, choices, creon, decide, decisions, delphi, destiny, diagonal, disgusting, drama, fate, game, greece, greek, human, incest, ismene, jocasta, king, late, mom, mother, oedipus, oedipus rex, oedipus the king, oracle, play, queen, random, rex, rook, rumor, sophocles, sphinx, thebes, thoughts, tired, tiresias, tragedy
I honestly believe that ignorance is bliss. Take a look at Oedipus in Sophocles’ Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex. If he had just ignored the oracles and seers that tended to pop up all over the damn place he could have continued living happily. He could have cheeerily gone and gotten some hanky panky on with his wife, Jocasta, without feeling extremely disgusting because he’d just done the dirty with his momma. But no, he listened to rumor, he listened to the Oracle at Delphi, and he simply couldn’t even be bothered to try and quench the burning curiosity he felt when it came to the circumstances surrounding his birth. If he’d lived in ignorance, he wouldn’t have lived such a cursed life.
Because I do not believe that Fate lays out our destinies before us. Yes, there might be obstacles set up along the way by some higher power. Okay, cool. But we choose– we decide– what we do with those obstacles. You can’t tell me that the starving is the “fate” of the millions of emaciated children in third world countries. You cannot convince me that my fate is to end up where some fantastical god moves me.
I am not a pawn. I am not a queen, either. But on the chessboard of life, I consider myself a rook or a bishop (preferably a bishop, I like diagonals more than I like straight lines)– I have restrictions, like any human being. But I can do as much with the game as I want to, even if that means being taken out of the playing because of my own stupidity.
On the other end of the metaphorical spectrum, however, I could also end up checkmating the other guy, as a bishop.
Hmm. It must be late, for me to be making comparisons to chess about life. Time for me to get diagonally to bed.
Kick Drum Heart 