Musical Adventures

I would rather have stuck my head in a bucket of ice water than do what I have done for the past two hours. Any guesses as to what it was? Practicing? No. Making reeds? No. Talking to someone I didn't want to talk to? Do the dishes? Clean the bathroom? No, no, and no. Apply for jobs? Why, yes! We do have a winner! Ugh. I can't think of many things that are as self-depreciating as applying for jobs that you're over-qualified for and don't even want to be doing anyways. I am thinking of abandoning ship and sinking all of my time into developing a money tree so as to solve my application woes.

Speaking of applications, I have applied to go to Domaine Forget for their summer program June 15-29. I know that most of you think I am planning on working at an internship this summer, and well that would be ideal, given the vast non-response students like myself are getting in the Ontario job market, it is looking less and less likely; not impossible, just less likely. I figure I'll keep as many doors open as possible and we'll see what happens. It costs $1150 to go to Domaine, but thankfully I was able to get everything ready before the scholarship deadline: Prof. McKay wrote me a letter of recommendation after my sketchy-mc-sketch-sketch lesson today & I just happened to run into Mike (our recording engineer) for the sole hour he's at the music faculty this week to get a copy of our studio recital to use for the recording requirement. If this $1150 opportunity becomes free, or closer to it than $1150, I'm going. Here're the coolio people I'd get to study with if I go:

	Whitney Crockett Principal, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra	Masterclasses June 22 to 29
	Richard Gagnon Principal, Quebec Symphony	June 15 to 29
	Gustavo Núñez Principal, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam	Masterclasses June 15 to 22

You can buff up your French skills and check the web-site out if you'd like to know more about the program: http://www.domaineforget.com/en/academie/academie.shtml

Ok, so time to recap this weekend's events.

On Sunday, Steven, Sarah, and Elena (another bassoonist at Western... YAY BASSOONS!) left to head out to the Toronto area. Being my first time driving in Toronto, they all faired very well (well maybe not Steven :P) with my slight panickyness at people cutting us off. Kayla lent me her GPS and this helped out the panick-level quite a bit. Unfortunately for me, I recalled the address of the bus station (our first stop) as 510 Bay Street instead of 610. FYI, 510 Bay St. is apparently located within the airport, as we discovered when TomTom (our name for the GPS) led us into the parking complex... After discovering my mistake (good thing I wrote out directions on paper before I left just in case!) we made it to the bus station in good time and in a relatively good mood (getting that "lost" with a GPS is just awesome no matter how you look at it).

After the bus station stop, Elena and I headed back out to Brampton to drop her off. I got to experience grid lock for the first time but thankfully it was for only about 30 minutes. After dropping her off I headed up to Palgrave to stay with my Uncle Paul and his family. I have to say that it really was quite an eye-opening experience to drive through what seemed like millions of identical subdivisions. Living in a little 5-10km bubble for the last four years, with relatively little interruption, really misguides my little thinker about how many people there are in this world. Anyhoo, some of the Toronto "countryside" was really quite nice. I think if I ever work in Toronto, living up in the Palgrave area would be kinda nice. Trees and farm fields = a good idea.

Sunday night I partied with Paul & his four kids courtesy of Guitar Hero. This was my first time playing it and I was a little unimpressed. Meh. It was fun to hang out with little kids again though. Megan and Jesse played my bassoon and thought that was pretty cool too.

Monday morning I headed out to the bassoon repair place with three things already gone terribly wrong. One, my cell phone died shortly after I woke up. It hasn't been lasting more than 24 hours these days and I should have known better and plugged it in overnight. The second bad thing occurred when as I was carrying my bags to the door, I notice that my left hand middle finger was throbbing and looked down to find it gushing blood. Apparently I hit an artery. Funny thing is I don't remember at allll how it happened. Unfortunately the cut is right in the spot where my tone hole hits my finger so every time I've played in the last 24 hours I feel a sweet sense of pain. The third downer prior to 7:30am was the failing of the GPS. It just wouldn't turn on. I was SO frustrated by this point because I'd already left late because my finger was gushing and now I -- the girl who gets lost WITH A GPS --had to rely on paper directions!?

Traffic was a lot better than anticipated heading into Brampton so I arrived only 8 minutes late to what I thought was the repair place. I do know that instrument repair shops don't have signage for a reason, but man I was SO frustrated by this point that I hadn't found the building (FYI it's on the third floor of a warehouse... as if I would ever think to go wandering around a warehouse with my bassoon without anybody warning me that's what I had to do ahead of time...). Thankfully they weren't too upset that I was late (I didn't even bother to look at my watch, but probably no more than 20min late).

After dropping my bassoon off I had to figure out how to get Steven's violin to its respective repair place downtown Toronto sans directions, sans GPS, and sans my cell phone. I decided to drive around Brampton and try to find either a Starbucks to plug my phone in (they have plugs for laptops I think), a Radio Shack / Best Buy to take the GPS into, or a payphone, whatever came first. Surprisingly enough, payphones are practically non-existent nowadays. Also, Starbucks was nowhere to be found. Within about 15min I did locate a Best Buy only to discover that it didn't open until 10. I decided to wander around the mall it was in until it opened. I'm pretty sure I've never been in a mall before any of the stores open. It was an interesting experience to say the least: lots of eager shoppers prepared to interact with considerably less eager sales people. Anyhoo, lo-and-behold, I found a set of payphones in the mall and made a frantic phone call to Kayla, owner of the GPS. She didn't have any idea what was wrong with it (silent "yaaaaaaaays" going on inside now) but was SUPER awesome at calming me down and getting me the phone number for the violin guy so I could get directions to his place. From this phone call on, the day started to look up. :)

I called Quentin, and he gave me directions to his place and expressed his disdain for GPS systems. Misery loves company. :) By this time Best Buy was open and a less than enthused sales person helped to show me how to reset the GPS (he had no idea what was wrong with it either). I was feeling considerably better now as I braved the driving trip to downtown Toronto. The drive was perfectly fine and I had a nice visit with Mr. Violin repair man. He suggested a place for lunch down the street. I went and they even had a plug-in for laptops. GLORIOUS! I plugged in my cell phone and had an excellent crepe. Things were beginning to look up.

Having a fully charged cell phone and a working GPS, I was feeling considerably riskier-- what else could possible go wrong -- so I took a trip to Ikea. I'm always impressed by their little inventions and even more impressed when I can leave that store having spent nothing. After my tour of Ikea it was time to head back up to get the bassoon. When I arrived back in Brampton, they were still working on it. Shane invited me to watch him finish what I presume was oiling the keys & gluing on some new pads. I do not advise ever watching someone work on your instrument. Don't get me wrong, Shane is very good, but I imagine it's like watching someone you know undergo a surgical procedure you don't understand... not a good idea. Anyhow, an hour later, my bassoon played probably better than it ever has. The whole boot and long joint were leaking like a siv before. Now my low notes can be low and in tune, quiet, and having good tone. A truly novel idea. We discussed further modifications I might want to consider in the future, but really I should be able to get away with my instrument as-is forever. There is one $1500 key that I can have put on at some point, but the only people using it now are people in the BSO. Anyhoo, on top of the bassoon repairs I also got oodles of career advice from Shane. Yay for knowing at least one other person who has their hands in both the music and the business pots.

Well that was probably the longest post ever. Must have a lot of school work to be doing... *shifty eyes*....