Village Life

It's been a couple days, so I better let you all know what's up. Friday, I had the orchestra audition. I played the first movement of the Larsson Concertino, and it went pretty well. I was unhappy with a couple instances of high note vibrato, and there's this triple tonguing run near the end that is brutal which I sucked up, but overall, pretty solid. It's hard to know, because I haven't set up trombone lessons yet, although I've talked to the guy. So usually, I'd have Dr. Smith telling me what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it. This time, it was all me. So, after that, I sightread two excerpts from Shostakovich 15, which went alright. The first one jumped into tenor clef in the middle, so that complicated things, and the other was very slow and lyrical, so that presented its own set of issues. But the conductor was very nice, he asked me if I knew Anna Bolz, who played in orchestra here two years ago. For those of you who don't know, I sat behind Anna in Concert Band last year. I got every indication from one of the music society people that I really don't have to worry, I got in. So, that's good. It was a joint audition for 2 orchestras, one student led, one led by the conductor. I really hope I get into the conductor's one, because they're playing Wagner's Die Meistersinger Overture, which has a sweet trombone part. I think I'm going to end up in both though. We'll find out on Thursday. I'm really looking forward to getting back in the music culture. I haven't played an ensemble since Music Showcase in May.

Yesterday, we had an assignment for the Luther International Studies course. The mission, which we pretty much had to accept, was to find our way to a small village around Nottingham, and get a sense of village life in contemporary England. We were supposed to talk to people and find out as much as we could about the town. Obviously not an assignment I would excel at. I got a town called Upton, figured out the bus schedule, and took a 50 minute ride out to the town. I saw 2 other people on the streets or outside the whole 3 hours I was there. I walked the length of the town (10 minute walk), and decided to check out the church, thinking there might be someone there. Nope, no one. But, I sat inside the church for a while, it was probably 16th or 17th century. Pretty nice. Then I was hungry, and was set on going to this pub called The French Horn. The musical and French connotations got me pretty excited. So I head over, and it says it opens at 12. It's 12:10, and the door is positively locked, and it looks dead. So I head to the other pub, called The Cross Keys, where I had cottage pie (mashed potatoes and minced beef), peas, chips, and a pint of ale. Still no success in discovering anything about the village. I see on a map there's a cricket ground nearby, and thinking that might be cool, I walk out to it. It was like being in the middle of nowhere. The cricket ground was nothing but a green field, I don't really know what I was expecting, since I don't even know how to play cricket. But by the time I got back to the village, I had missed the bus that I planned to take to the next town over. So, I go back to The Cross Keys for some Coke. Finally get on the bus, and head to Southwell (pronounced Suthall), which is a larger suburb of Nottingham. I stopped into the big cathedral there, and the Nottingham Symphony was rehearsing for a concert that night. They were playing (surprise), Wagner's Die Meistersinger Overture. So, I listened to that, and talked with a violinist for a while (the trombonists where otherwise occupied). Then I just sort of walked around a bit, and took the bus back into Nottingham. I stopped into a sweet independent music store, and was on the brink of buying Bob Dylan's Modern Times album, but I didn't.

We had to present the findings last night at dinner. To those of you who don't know, we have two Luther professors of English, Mark Muggli and Carol Gilbertson, here as program directors. They're married. They're both very nice and really cool, but the Luther aspect of this year is definitely starting to get stifling. Tuesday night is consumed from about 5:30 to 9:30 with Paideia Capstone (which prevented me from doing Concert Band). And it seems dinner every night takes 2 hours (literally), because they have the unique skill to turn a 5 minute announcement into an hour long ordeal. It's just sort of like, go home, please. In addition, the weekend house trips and other "assignments" are going to get increasingly problematic, as everyone is becoming more involved with societies, sports, class, etc, etc, etc. I'm going to miss my first softball practice this weekend because we're going to Wales. Obviously, they're a great opportunity and such, but it'd be nice to have a routine. And it would be nice to have a little more independence from these ridiculous 2 hour let's talk about nothing important that we could figure out by ourselves - a- thons. So, that's frustrating, but whatever. I better get some of this journaling that they require done. Class for me starts on Tuesday, so finally something is going to happen.

Quick sidenote. The Twins have a slight chance of winning the AL Central division today. As much as it pains me to say it, I think they are better off winning only the Wild Card, and tackling the Yankees head on in the Divisional Series. As ESPN and Fox Sports have pointed out, it's better to only have to beat them 3 times in the ALDS than 4 times in the ALCS. Right now Randy Johnson is iffy, and there's a chance the Yankees would have to trot out 4 righthanders, which the Twins hit very well. Plus, they would have the chance for Santana to pitch twice in a 5 game series, which if tradition is followed, pretty much means 2 wins. As many have pointed out, the goal is to win the World Series, not the AL Central.