check out my new website at: mark.idratherread.net

I updated my concerts on my myspace page.

Thanks everyone for the emails and cards and stuff!

I'll post more later, this semester is crazy!

Good News

Well, the school year is off to a busy start, and everything is going well. I've got a couple of items of good news that I didn't have a week ago.

My grades all finally came in. I can feel the suspense building, wait for it... I got straight A's. 4.0. Yeah. Regardless of my dad's belief that lessons and history classes don't require grades, I finally got both of my A's.

Secondly, and even cooler, I got a scholarship. Well, I guess it's more of a financial award. Dr. Weinberg informed last week that he had some good news for me and hew told me earlier this week that I was getting some money! He wasn't sure what the amount was so he didn't want to say anything. So now that I've finally found out I can post it. I got $2,250! Apparently what happened was that the music department found some money (how I don't know) that they needed to award. Out of 20 people nominated by their professors, I was one of 5 picked for it. Yay! That will pay for one quarter of my tuition this semester.

In other news I will be splitting a recital with one of the other students in the studio. Amy (not the one I'm married to) and I will be playing a recital on April 26th at 3 pm in room 232 of the music building. Don't get too excited, it should be pretty low-key. No one needs to rush out and buy plane tickets or anything. I will also be entering a PAS Multiple Percussion Competition in April as long as I get everything done in time. All in all it's going to be a crazy busy semester for me, so we'll see how everything goes.

I think that's it for now. I'll post some new stuff if there are ever any updates. I also hope to update my MySpace page in the next week or so, and then everyone can see what concerts I'm playing this semester.

Wait, what is this again? I didn't know I had a blog...

So, here we go again. I'm making the effort to get back on the bandwagon due to intense familial pressure (in other words, I had a couple of comments about it at Christmas). So between Christmas and now not much happened. Amy and I watched 21 James Bond movies in chronological order, and I played a lot of video games, and now we're watching Arrested Development. Now that school is back in session things are starting to pick back up again. I got hired to play with SASO again, and I will be playing xylophone on the Comedian's Suite by Dmitri Kabalevsky. I guess that's about all.

In school news, I'm going to be very busy this semester. I know, it shocked me too. Anyway, I'm excited to be taking drumset lessons in addition to "normal" lessons (everything else), and I'm also doing a very cool independent study. I'm calling it The Use of Technology in Percussion Pedagogy. It's exactly what it sounds like. I'm also in Wind Ensemble again, and Percussion Ensemble and CrossTalk as well. And I can't forget my new theory class, which I have to take because I didn't do so great on my theory diagnostic. It's called Comprehensive Theory and will cover everything I learned in theory in my undergrad in one semester. So we'll see how that one goes. It's already boring... I'm going to try and make blogging a requirement for my independent study, so if that happens, I'll mention it here and anyone who is interested in that can follow that blog as well.

Finally, I'm rereading the Wheel of Time series again so I'll be ready for the last one that comes out this fall. I even bought the rest of them I didn't have (4 out of 11, 3 of which I haven't ever read).



I suppose I can try and keep this updated a little more regularly, that's as close to a promise as I'll get.

PASIC

Well, among other things happening these days is PASIC. Finally, I'm starting to get ready for the convention, and as always, it's very exciting. A week from today I'll be traveling to Austin to go hear about 50 concerts, see 20 lectures, and meet all kinds of people, not to mention check out all the newest percussion equipment. This year is especially cool because I will have a bunch of my friends there. There's about 6 or 7 people from UNM coming and about 16 from UA. I'm really looking forward to having a bunch of people around that I know.



In other news, school is happening. I just had a concert on Sunday, and I've still got a few left. It's really weird to realize that the semester is beginning to wind down, we only have 6 weeks (or so) left! This semester has definitely flown by, and I think at least partially because it's still 90 degrees outside!


Well, I never posted this, so here it is about 2 weeks after I originally wrote it.

As soon as you think it's over...

Well, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is I got hired to play the next cycle with
SASO, the bad news is that effectively destroys all possibilities of free time between now and the end of the semester. Hooray for having a job, it's been very difficult trying to find some kind of work here. As far as I can tell, I've moved to the top of their sub list. This is the last cycle of the year, but they've got a couple more in the spring. Hopefully I'll get more students soon as well.

In other strange news, I made a myspace page. I know, I know, you don't have to say it. Any way, I did it for networking purposes, so we'll see how that turns out. If it doesn't do what I want I can always just delete it. It happens to serve another purpose as well, I can post concert information on it so that's what I'm doing. Mom, that's for you, since you asked me to let you know when my concerts are, I will keep that updated and all you have to do is go and look at it.

Here's a story Amy thought I should post. I have a friend at UA who I recently found out was at the National Paper Rock Scissor Championships in Las Vegas, which sounds very impressive. I was talking with Dr. Weinberg when my friend (Carlos, if you want a name) walked by and Dr. Weinberg wanted me to challenge him. Well, long story short, I beat him 2 out of 3. I guess I'm really good at paper rock scissors. Who knew?

PASIC is in three weeks! It's my favorite time of the year. I'm thinking about trying to live-blog during it, but I'm guessing that's too much work. I'd post it on my other blog anyway. Oh yeah, I got that up and Derek wanted the link. I haven't done much with it yet, but I think I will. What I really need is my own website where I can have all of this in the same place. Maybe I'll set one up at Thanksgiving when I can talk to Dad about how to do it on our family page. I am definitely looking forward to Thanksgiving as well. It'll be good to see all my siblings again, and the rest of the families too. Too bad I don't know my travel plans for sure yet.

Also, does anyone know of any freeware office type programs besides open office? I was using it for a while, but I can't get it to open on my laptop anymore. I need it for my mac, so pc specific programs won't work.

I think I've also decided to do another recital in the spring sometime, more details as I figure them out. I think for one other big project I might try and do some kind of decent recording of some stuff and put it up on some sites. We'll see. Let me know what you think.

Last, I'm still going to try and figure out a way to play my current music on each post, but I don't know if I can do that or not. Here's the info anyway, I suppose you can always check it out at the iTunes store. Stefon Harris "Evolution"

Breathing room

Finally, my busy couple of weeks is over. I had 3 concerts and a test during the last two weeks. I played with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra and had some fun, but it sure took up a lot of time. I got paid for it which is great as well. Overall it was pretty easy except for the 4th movement of Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony. I played crash cymbals. Go listen to the end somewhere and you'll know why it's hard. I also played a piece with the UA Philharmonic. That was really easy (just triangle on the Carmen suite) but it also took up some time. Anyway now I'm back to normal school stuff.

There was some good news from last week though, I got a 98 on my test! This is good because I only got an 85 on the first one and I want an A in the class. Pretty soon I need to figure out a topic for my research paper for that class, it's going to be exciting.

That's about all that's happening, or already happened with me. Now I'm getting excited about PASIC!