I suddenly realised that J-term finishes the day after tomorrow, classes start, and I am entirely unprepared for this impending happening. It is looming, big and dark, very much like a very loomy thing. So this morning I had to bite the bullet and get on with preparing for the arrival of actual work and actual things to do. I was fairly successful in my uber productive day of productivity; I have topped up my one-card so I can do laundry, I have met with the director of Orchestra, I have ordered the books I need for my first two weeks of classes, I have set up an amazon student account, I have purchased a sketch book, I have marked all the bowings in for the first violins. Not bad for a day's work, and I still have the entire evening to get more done. Being productive is fairly satisfying.
I spent a great deal of time marking the bowings and fingerings in on music today, it takes much longer than I had anticipated, and since it's all marked in in pencil, you can't always see everything, and suddenly 5 copies in you realise you've missed a slur or something and you have to go back and change everything. Luckily thanks to the months I spent working at the Howard, I am very accustomed to performing repetitive and mind-numbing tasks, and actually this is a little more stimulating than hours of laminating. I also discovered that it when exposed to a special brand of peppy pop music it is possible to keep fairly up-beat while doing this. Perky-pop of the minute was Miley Cyrus. So there I was, in the library, before class starts, in my new enormous lumberjack shirt, rocking out to Miley Cyrus, and scribbling all over a huge pile of music. It was then that I decided I needed a cool transplant. And that Miley needs to learn how to master the key-change.
I am unsure why I have not previously discovered the Amazon Student account. I was alerted to its existence by a friend. Transpires, with an Amazon student account you get free two-day delivery. On everything. It's jolly fantastic! Which was pretty lucky, since classes start in two days, And my books should arrive in two days. See what I did there! I feel a little more prepared for classes now. I have bought the books for my Modern British Novel class, and my French class. There aren't any posted for my Medieval Lit class thus far, which is a little disconcerting, but hey ho! The only book my Creative Writing professor seems concerned that we get is a very particular Sketch Book, which had to be a very specific size and have a special kind of binding and certain number of pages. I went to the bookshop to purchase this magical, mythical Sketch Book. I'm more than a little concerned by this. I really am last in the artistically inclined camp. When God was passing out artistic talent, I was looking the other way. Hopefully use of The Sketch Book will be limited to cutting and sticking. I am very proficient in cutting and sticking.
The productivity of my day is made somewhat more impressive when one considers the complete lack of gainful activity which has been completed within the last month. Which has been so close to zero as to be almost entirely indiscernible. Also the fact that it is actually ARCTIC out there. For once in my life I am not exaggerating even a little tiny bit. It's in single figures. IN. FAHRENHEIT. Inhaling makes me cough. My lungs are rejecting the oxygen. It's that cold. And that's during the day. The other night it was -9. STILL. IN. FAHRENHEIT. That's -23 degrees Celsius guys. The high-schools in South Hadley were closed today, it was so cold! I'm going to turn into an icicle. Talking of icicles, there are some pretty spectacular icicles around actually. They're huge and lethal looking. I fear for my life every time I walk into a building. On the bright side they are also pretty beautiful. I think New England might be built for this kind of weather, all the little wooden houses, with the white trimming covered in snow and ice, it's pretty much picturesque.
The prevailing weather conditions are proving the time for the somewhat outdated heating system in my building to show its worth. It has been almost unbearably hot in my room. To the extent that I've kept my window open pretty much since I moved in. The heating has turny dial, but I'm pretty much convinced that this is nothing more than a placebo dial, and not a very good one at that. From my experimentation the only thing that changes as you turn the dial is the amount of noise that emits from the heater. Apparently all the noise is made by steam. This is hard to believe, I am of the opinion that it is more likely a gremlin which lives inside the pipes. With a spanner (a wrench for all you American folks). A loud bashy spanner. Nevertheless the excessive efficiency of my heater is proving rather helpful because despite the fact that there is currently ice on the inside of the window, it is pleasantly toasty in my room.
In other news two of my friends have broken their feet. Sadly they both broke the right foot. I think it would have been somewhat marvellous had they broken a left and a right one so I could have mix and matched friend feet. Or something like that. One of them is legitimately in pain, the other has been walking around on the broken foot for several months and very very bad at not walking on it cast and all now purple casty-ness has been applied. Clearly with all the ice and snow, now is not really the best time to be crutching around campus. So I get to go on fun crutching adventures to the Dining Hall and look like a massive fatty while I help myself to two plates of food. It's all fun and games.
Oh and guys! it's my birthday next Wednesday! Just as an FYI!
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